Today’s startups are not so important to plug in the AI label.
On August 29th, the “2019 World Artificial Intelligence Conference” officially opened in Shanghai. With the theme of “Infinitely Possible World of Zhilian World”, this conference has gathered more than 500 leading industry leaders, investment institutions and international organizations including Ma Huateng, Ma Yun and Elon Musk. At the “Innovation and Capital” roundtable forum held at the main venue, Shen Nanpeng, global executive partner of Sequoia Capital, said that the vigorous development of artificial intelligence is inseparable from the help of three important groups – scientists, entrepreneurs, investors, and It constitutes the “iron triangle” of artificial intelligence.
Shen Nanpeng is the chairman of the roundtable forum, with the founder and CEO of Didi Travel, Cheng Wei, the co-founder of Yitu Technology, Lin Chenxi, the founder of Yun Cong Technology, and the founder and CEO of the Cambrian Chen Tianshi. “The entrepreneurs” held a dialogue to discuss the important role that capital needs to undertake in promoting the ecological innovation of technological innovation and technological enterprise development.
Shen Nanpeng emphasized in his speech that artificial intelligence needs to look at the “starry sea” of technological breakthroughs, but it is more necessary to use the “thick soil” for industrial application. This requires the establishment of two “anchor points” for the development of artificial intelligence: First, to achieve real value creation, not only to open up new industrial landscapes, but also to show strong value creativity in the empowerment and transformation of traditional industries; Second, AI needs to be people-oriented. Artificial intelligence should always adhere to serving people and benefiting people. It is especially important in data security and social ethics.
The following is a presentation:
Respected leaders, scientists, entrepreneurs, friends here,
Hello everyone, I am very excited to see so many top AI scientists, the most active entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs coming to the conference today.
This morning, the conference announced the establishment of the National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Open Innovation Platform, which includes representatives of the top ten innovative companies. I am very pleased that four of the ten companies are invested by Sequoia.
As an entrepreneur behind entrepreneurs, we have been active in the forefront of technological innovation and entrepreneurship, providing services and support for outstanding entrepreneurial projects and contributing to our strength. The application of AI technology is an important area of our long-term concern, and it is the theme of Sequoia’s global investment.
For a long time in the past, when people talk about artificial intelligence, it seems that they are used to looking at the “star sea” from a technical point of view, expecting the most perfect algorithm, the most powerful chip and the most effective big. Data analysis model; more people try to use AI part to achieve the replacement of human intelligence.
It is true that over the past 60 years of AI development, technology has made a series of breakthroughs, but what is even more exciting is the application of many applications. ThisEntrepreneurs with both technical beliefs and business insights have built a bridge between the two. From our observations, there have been some new changes in entrepreneurship in the AI field. For example, among the entrepreneurs of the technology companies we are in contact with, the number of people who have volunteered to say that they are an “AI company” has become less, but the use of AI as an important tool has increased the number of people actively exploring the vertical field of enterprise AI.
I want to talk about the story of a textile factory first. I am from Zhejiang, and the Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces have a reputation as “the house of silk” since ancient times. The textile industry has always been one of the important pillar industries in the region. When it comes to textile mills, there may still be stereotypes of labor-intensive operations in our minds, but in fact, a number of pioneering textile factories have already renewed their vitality with the combination of AI technology.
Zhejiang Shaoxing has a group of such textile mills. They cooperated with an artificial intelligence enterprise invested by Sequoia to carry out all the textile and printing and dyeing equipments for the transformation and upgrading of Internet of Things equipment and SaaS. With a systematic smart dispatch and a unified printing and dyeing process and formulation technology support, its overall output and net profit quickly increased by more than 25%.
This case is a microcosm of the accelerated integration of AI technology and traditional industries under the guidance of current national policies. Today’s startups are not so important to plug in the AI tags. What really matters is to find the right application and find the products that really need them. to improve the industry performance and improve the user experience. The driving force for high quality economic development.
It can be said that AI is in the “star sea” of technology research and development, and has also entered the thick soil of industry application.
In my opinion, helping AI innovation requires two anchor points.
First, AI wants to achieve true value creation. This year, the Sequoia team conducted a survey of 50 CIOs of Fortune Global 500 companies and found that their popularity with AI was almost 100%. Robot Process Automation (RPA) and chat bots have represented great value as a representative of early AI products.
AI not only opens up new industry landscapes, such as autonomous driving, but also demonstrates strong value creativity in empowering and transforming traditional industries. Competition is becoming more and more fierce. With the increasing standardization of algorithms such as algorithms, big data, and chips, only AI technology companies that solve the vertical industry pain points have the opportunity to achieve great companies.
Beyond value creation, the second anchor I want to say is that AI is people-oriented. In the process of infiltration into various industries, AI will develop into an infrastructure like the Internet. This requires us to anchor another basic point before it achieves a comprehensive link between AI and human social life: regardless of AI technology developmentTo what extent, it should always adhere to serving people and benefiting people, and at the same time play a positive role in data security and social ethics.
Give an example of “AI+Medical”. The early startup company of Sequoia Investment is headquartered in Shanghai and its name is Senyi Intelligent. They worked with many hospitals to install a system called “Intravenous Thromboembolism Intelligent Prediction and Assisted Diagnosis” for inpatients. It can reduce the rate of missed diagnosis of this disease by 76% and save nurses 2-3 hours of work per week. In our opinion, the application of AI is to empower humans. The application of this kind of technology allows doctors to put more energy into the frontier research such as disease pathology, and also allows nurses to have more time to provide psychological care and other human care.
Now, we are very happy to see that more and more technology companies are creating value in a down-to-earth manner and pushing technology toward a people-oriented direction. At today’s roundtable forum, there are four leading companies in AI technology and applications, and their products are being widely used in many important industries: Didi’s smart transportation solutions have achieved remarkable results in improving urban road congestion; The AI chip developed by Wu Ji has reached the international first-class level in terms of computing power; Yitu and Yun have many scene applications in many fields such as finance, medical treatment and vision.
The founders of these companies, in addition to their 80s, they have strong research capabilities, a keen sense of business, and a firm belief in value creation. They have deep insights into innovation and the future, and they are also the industry. The person who is at the forefront.