Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 369: 5G Standards Dispute
"Shocked, Zhiyun is suspected of releasing Skynet robots!"

“Dig deeper into the inside story of Zhiyun’s upcoming robot!”

"Expert X said that human society is about to enter a brand new robot era!"

“What can the robot that Zhiyun is about to release do?”

There are a lot of various news about Zhiyun robots. Of course, most of them are messy fake news. I guess they are just for the purpose of taking advantage of the popularity and attracting traffic.

After all, the outside world is not clear about what kind of robot Zhiyun is going to release. When most media reports on it, they directly talk about the conceptual artificial intelligence robot released by Zhiyun two years ago.

But regardless of whether the news was true or not, the news that Zhiyun was about to release a commercial robot quickly spread around the world, attracting the attention of countless industry insiders, technology enthusiasts and even ordinary people.

And this is Zhiyun’s strength: no matter what the robot Zhiyun is going to release looks like, or how practical it is, people are still generally paying attention to it and even looking forward to it.

And many people believe that since Zhiyun Group has made the product and is about to put it on the market for sale, the robot product must be mature and usable.

This is people's trust in a world-class high-end brand and the world's top high-tech company.

If there is any company that can really make practical robots these days, it would only be Zhiyun Group.

Even in the US market, which has banned Zhiyun Group's communication terminal products, there has been a heated discussion about the robot that Zhiyun Group is about to release.

A reporter interviewed the head of Google's robotics team and asked a series of questions: "What do you think the robots that Zhiyun Group is about to release will look like? Are Zhiyun's robots really ready for practical use?"

In response to the reporter's many questions, the head of the Google Robotics team answered very cautiously: "I don't know what kind of robot Zhiyun is going to release. There is no corresponding news at present."

"Of course, we can guess some basic things."

"If Zhiyun really makes a practical robot, it must be a robot based on artificial intelligence technology. As for what field it is suitable for, that is unknown!"

“As for whether their technology can support the robot to reach the level of actual use, it is hard to say. After all, no one has seen the real thing yet, so it is difficult to judge!”

The reporter asked again: "So how is Google's robot research going? When will it be able to launch a commercial product?"

Hearing this question, the person in charge paused for a few seconds and then said: "Our research progress is going smoothly. As for the launch of commercial products, we still need some time."

As for when the corresponding product can be launched...he himself doesn't know.

Anyway, all the experimental robots made so far are like idiots, unable to walk steadily, let alone perform any sophisticated operations.

Their current technological level in the field of robotics is not even able to achieve many of the features demonstrated by the conceptual robot released by Zhiyun Group two years ago.

This involves a series of hardware and software issues.

This hardware does not refer to the shell of the robot, but specifically refers to the many high-performance sensors and high-performance onboard computing chips that maintain the operation of the system...as well as the more upstream AI training chips.

The software part is the core algorithm and subsequent model training.

Only after having an excellent core algorithm and then spending a lot of money on various training day and night can an excellent robot algorithm be produced.

This excellent robot algorithm needs to run on a high-performance airborne computing chip...and also requires a large number of sensors to provide data support.

Each of the above is a pitfall given the current technological conditions.

In addition, if Google has some confidence in the algorithm part, then the chip part is very difficult to deal with...

It’s all because of the poor performance of semiconductor manufacturers such as Intel, Qualcomm, and AMD. Several years have passed, and they still can’t even produce a graphics card for AI training.

The above three American semiconductor manufacturers started the so-called AI training chip project a few years ago, but so far only AMD has produced a finished product, but AMD's AI graphics card is too poor.

On the one hand, the gap in chip design capabilities leads to poor hardware performance, and on the other hand, there are problems with the AI ​​development ecosystem.

Several years have passed, but AMD's AI training graphics cards have not sold many units so far. That crappy thing is really hard to use.

Of course, this is actually also related to a large number of American high-tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. They complain about AMD's lack of effort while purchasing Zhiyun's APO graphics cards on a large scale.

This made AMD very resentful... Before I developed it, you said that AI training graphics cards cannot be blocked by Zhiyun, and you must have your own AI training cards.

After I developed it, you said my ecosystem was not good, and instead increased your efforts to purchase Zhiyun's APO graphics cards. You even took my products to Zhiyun to try to lower the price.

That’s right, Google and a number of other high-tech manufacturers took AMD’s AI training graphics cards to negotiate with Zhiyun, trying to lower the price of APO graphics cards.

What's more, after feeling the pressure, Zhiyun Group actually lowered the price of APO graphics cards. As a result, Google and others quickly increased their purchases of APO graphics cards.

For high-tech companies like Google that need a large number of AI training graphics cards, the biggest role of AMD's AI training graphics cards is not to train AI, but to lower prices with Zhiyun.

This made AMD very annoyed... They felt like they were being played for a fool. Damn, everyone said nice things to them before, but when it came time to vote with their wallets, they all chose Zhiyun.

This has resulted in extremely serious losses in AMD's AI training graphics card business, and there have even been calls within the company to slow down or even suspend the development of AI training graphics cards... No one will want them anyway, so what's the point of doing it?

If the profit is small, there is still business to be done, but now it is not a question of how much profit can be made, but how much loss can be made.

In order to make this AI training graphics card, the company's financial report is now very ugly. It is an eyesore no matter how you look at it. This has also led to the stock price not going up, and the board of directors is very dissatisfied.

So AMD, although it has not announced it publicly, has actually slowed down its aggressive pace in developing AI training graphics cards. It plans to take it slow, control investment, and focus on the low-end computing power card market. It can also use more time to accumulate the ecosystem...

As for those high-tech companies that will be strangled by Zhiyun in the future, it has nothing to do with AMD. Anyway, AMD is not engaged in the field of artificial intelligence and does not need to train any AI.

----

In addition to AI training chips, there is also an airborne computing power chip, which is similar to the EYEQ series, Drive PX, EYQ series chips, and ZY23 series chips, which are specifically designed to process large amounts of sensor data.

This field is also where Zhiyun Group has an absolute advantage... The above four computing power platforms are all products of Zhiyun Group's subsidiaries.

The latter two are products used by Zhiyun Group and its sister companies and are not sold to the outside world... Hailan Automobile relies on the EYQ series chips to build its autonomous driving products, which are sold all over the world and have established its absolute leading position in the field of autonomous driving.

The ZY23 chip is a high-performance computing chip developed by Zhiyun specifically for robots. It is used to process high-density sensor data. Although it may be used in other fields in the future, it is also impossible to sell it to the outside world!
These two chips, like the S series chips in the mobile phone field, are the core technology products of Zhiyun Group. They are used to establish the core advantageous technologies of its own terminal products and are not supplied to the outside world at all.

The only computing chips available to the outside world are the EYEQ series and Drive PX series from two subsidiaries.

The EYEQ series is a relatively closed system. It does not just sell chips, but a complete system. The chip is paired with a camera and an algorithm. It is more friendly to manufacturers that lack technical R&D capabilities. After buying it, they can basically customize it themselves. Most traditional car companies take this path.

The latter's PX series only sells the chip itself, while manufacturers need to develop algorithms and other supporting hardware themselves. This is a computing platform developed by Zhiyun Group specifically for capable and ambitious car companies or other artificial intelligence companies. Tesla is developing the next generation of autonomous driving technology on this platform.

In addition to Zhiyun Group, other semiconductor companies have also developed some computing power platforms. For example, Qualcomm has also begun to announce its entry into the computing power chip field and develop computing power chips for autonomous driving vehicles.

In addition, Tesla plans to develop its own airborne computing chips.

Not only Tesla, but Google is also trying to develop its own airborne computing chips.

However, the overall technological gap is still quite large compared to Zhiyun.

At the same time, the chip industry is a fast-growing industry. Zhiyun Group is currently maintaining the continuous launch of new APO graphics cards and airborne computing chips every year. It is extremely difficult for other companies to keep up with the pace.

Even if they can barely keep up with the capabilities in the chip design field, it is not easy to keep up with the chip manufacturing field... This year, Zhiyun is working on the 12-nanometer process, and next year it will mass-produce the 10-nanometer process for commercial use. If nothing unexpected happens the year after, it will most likely launch the 7-nanometer process... With this speed of process advancement, even TSMC will find it very difficult to keep up, and another major manufacturer, Intel, has not yet mastered the 7-nanometer process.

The quadruple exposure technology required for the seven-nanometer process is not that easy to master!

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The backwardness in the field of AI chips is an important factor causing other overseas high-tech companies to lag behind in AI technology research and development.

And AI technology is the core technology of robots!
Therefore, the head of the robot team of Gugou was also helpless. A good cook cannot cook without rice...

And GOOG is already the best company in AI technology besides Zhiyun Group. If GOOG is like this, let alone other companies, they still have a long way to go to catch up with GOOG.

Therefore, many high-tech companies are also very worried about the news that Zhiyun Group is about to release a commercial robot, because their own technology is so far behind. Zhiyun is about to develop commercial products, but their own companies cannot even make a concept machine.

But on the other hand, they also have certain expectations for Zhiyun Group's commercial robots: if Zhiyun Group's commercial robots are produced and have actual use value and market value, then it means that the path of robots supported by AI technology is correct. Since Zhiyun can go this way, they can naturally follow suit in the future.

This is the complex mentality of some overseas high-tech companies. On the one hand, they expect Zhiyun's robots to be successful, but on the other hand, they are worried about its success.

It's very confusing!

But these are the complex mindsets of people in the industry, while for ordinary people, it is more of curiosity.

"Zhiyun is going to come up with another high-tech product?"

"Robot? Did I hear it right? Isn't this something you can only see in science fiction movies?"

"How can we make robots like those in science fiction movies now? We can't make them. The current technology is not up to the task."

"I guess Zhiyun's robot is an industrial robot or a service robot. I checked and they have had industrial service robot products before... They say it's a robot, but it's actually just a robotic arm."

"Robotic arm? Oh, that's fine. We have a lot of them in our factory!"

"It could also be a dancing robot dog or something like that. Many people may not know that Zhiyun actually has a music dancing robot. You can see it on the official website. It costs 8,800 yuan each and it's quite fun!"

"A robot dog that can be used as a pet. I saw the video they released before, and the robot dog was pretty good!"

"What do you know? What you said is unreliable. I have exclusive insider information. The robot released by Zhiyun this time is a ruthless war machine. It is at least 4.6 meters tall and weighs 5.5 tons. It is equipped with a handheld particle cannon and a laser knife, and is single-piloted!"

"The one upstairs, you've walked into the wrong studio. This is a technology forum. Why don't you go to the anime community next door?"

"That's right, what's with the Gundam? As far as I know, the robots used in wars nowadays are actually unmanned tanks or something like that."

Many netizens have their own ideas and have had various discussions surrounding the robot that Zhiyun Group is about to release.

These are also what Zhiyun Group’s marketing department hopes to see.

They just want to spread all kinds of true and false news, attract people's attention, and then hold a press conference.

We will strive to spread the news about Zhiyun Robotics around the world after the press conference and strive to obtain more orders!
These are expensive toys, with a wheeled platform robot costing 300,000 yuan and a bipedal platform robot costing 400,000 yuan. It would be difficult to generate sufficient sales by relying on a single group or a single region.

Zhiyun Group’s marketing department must start discussions on the wave of products all over the world, and then strive to sell them globally.

As long as the population covered is large enough, even if the purchase ratio is lower, sufficient sales can be accumulated.

Ji Chenghe and his colleagues don't have big ambitions. As long as they can sell 200,000 units within a year after the product is launched and ensure that the production line does not lose money, that will be enough.

However, if this goal is set for other companies, it would probably be the ceiling target, because even if calculated based on the lowest selling price of 300,000 yuan and sales of 200,000 units, the sales revenue would reach an astonishing 60 billion Chinese yuan!
A product sold 60 billion in sales in the first year after it was launched, and this product is a big toy with an extremely high unit price... To be honest, apart from Zhiyun Group, no company has such confidence.

While the outside world was buzzing with discussions, except for the marketing department of Zhiyun Group, which occasionally released true and false news according to the situation to keep the discussion heated, the senior management of Zhiyun Group remained silent on the news about the robot, maintaining a basic sense of mystery.

At the end of November, Xu Shenxue attended an international communications technology forum. Although the conference discussed the communications field with 5G as the core, a large number of reporters asked Xu Shenxue about various topics related to robots.

"Mr. Xu, can you tell us what the robot that Zhiyun is about to release looks like? Do you have any photos?"

Xu Shenxue stood behind the security personnel, looking at the group of reporters in front of him, and said with a smile: "Thank you for your concern for Zhiyun. Regarding the winter press conference, please pay attention to our official website information in the future. We will release relevant information in due course."

The press conference hasn't started yet. The marketing department needs to maintain the heat and maintain people's curiosity. Xu Shenxue doesn't know if he will reveal too much information now.

However, other things can still be said.

"But I can be sure that the new product we are releasing this time will definitely be revolutionary and unprecedented black technology!"

After saying that, Xu Shenxue ignored the questions from the reporters and left the venue under the escort of security personnel.

Xu Shenxue left the venue under the escort of dozens of security personnel, which made a large number of corporate CEOs or executives from the communications industry who were attending the meeting envious.

This guy is the real boss!

"This is what a man should do!"

"It makes others envious!"

"When President Xu took over the family business, the assets were only a few hundred million, but now that it has developed all the way, I'm afraid it's more than a trillion, right?"

"One trillion? Haha, you think it's too little. When Zhiyun was first listed, Mr. Xu's net worth was already 700 to 800 billion. Now so many years have passed, and he has many other companies. According to my estimation, it's more than 2 trillion!"

"I heard that Vico Electronics and Vico Industrial are both going to be listed. Vico Electronics is the world's fourth largest smart terminal manufacturer, with a valuation of at least 150 billion US dollars. President Xu has a lot of shares in it!"

"And Vico Industries, the largest OEM company in China and the second largest in the world, must be worth tens of billions of dollars."

"Don't forget Yihai Technology Group. In terms of revenue, it is already the third largest Internet company in China. Internet companies have always had very high price-to-earnings ratios, so their valuations are probably exaggerated!"

"There is also the Hailan car, let's go quickly..."

A few people were talking, then they looked at each other and sighed.

"Comparing this person to others can make people angry to death!"

"Forget it. There's no point in competing with Mr. Xu. He's not on the same level as us. We should just run the business honestly and make some money for retirement."

"If you want to make money, you have to contact Zhiyun Group more often. This time the implementation of the 5G strategy is a good opportunity."

"5G is a major strategy that concerns the entire domestic industrial chain. There is nothing much to say about it. Just follow Zhiyun's vote when the time comes!"

"But I heard that Zhiyun has postponed the 3DPP's vote on 5G technical standards three times. I don't know when it will be finalized. It's not a good idea to keep dragging it out like this!"

"5G is not that easy to deal with. In the field of communication baseband, Zhiyun 5G and Qualcomm 5G are evenly matched. This involves the core products of both companies, the communication baseband issue, and neither is willing to compromise. In addition, there is also a dispute among base station manufacturers such as Huawei, Zhongxing, and Siemens over the standards of communication base station 5G technology. How can we get the result so quickly? Just wait!"

"But let's not worry about the other things. It's right for us to follow Zhiyun. Overseas companies don't know, but we are inseparable from Zhiyun's supply chain in China. Without Zhiyun's 5G chips, do we have to look to Qualcomm to purchase expensive 5G communication basebands or chips? That's nonsense!"

"Besides, if these companies don't fight, any monopoly by one company will not benefit us. Let them fight first, so that we can use the cheap 5G communication baseband!"

(End of this chapter)