On April 20, the 2022 annual meeting of Boao Forum for Asia opened. This annual meeting focused on global economic recovery, sustainable development and other issues, worked together to enhance mutual trust and reach consensus.
In order to facilitate the interview of Chinese and foreign journalists, a special “pen” appeared in the news center, forum and exhibition area. This is an intelligent translation pen officially designated by the Boao Forum. From chips, AI algorithms to industrial design, it comes from Chinese enterprises. It is an innovative product with the deep integration of China’s Internet and manufacturing industry, representing the achievements of China’s manufacturing transformation in the digital era.
Shenzhen factory struggled out of the quagmire of cottage manufacturing after ten years of transformation
At this year’s forum annual meeting, green recovery and sustainable development are one of the important topics. In the face of increasingly severe economic and energy conflicts, how to promote the innovative development of digital economy and promote the transformation and industrial transformation of global manufacturing industry is the focus of this Boao Forum Annual Meeting.
The translation pen appearing in Boao is a vivid case of the digital transformation of China’s manufacturing industry. Behind the translation pen, the technical solution Shang Tianhe Zhiyuan from Shenzhen, the tortuous development in the past 10 years, is the epitome of the transformation of China’s manufacturing industry.
The staff are explaining Youdao AI products
Pan Xiaolei, 45, went south from Beijing to Shenzhen to start a business 10 years ago. He saw that Shenzhen is the capital of hardware and has a full set of industrial chain, so he founded Tianhe Zhiyuan. Pan Xiaolei said, “that’s the craziest time for Huaqiangbei. It can produce tens of thousands of tablets a day. The company started to do tablet design and generation processing, making a net profit of more than 10 million a year.”
However, he did not get rid of anxiety. At that time, the Shenzhen factory basically followed the “factory model” of China’s traditional manufacturing industry: it produced and manufactured repeatedly, with low gross profit, and was extremely sensitive to the fluctuation of international trade prices. Pan Xiaolei realized that the strength of scientific and technological innovation is the core competitiveness of an enterprise. In order to break through the bottleneck of OEM mode, it is necessary to transform from manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing.
In 2013, the survival space of small and medium-sized enterprises was continuously narrowed, and the tablet manufacturing market was suddenly narrowed. In 2016, Tianhe Zhiyuan moved from Nanshan District to Bao’an District, and the number of employees was reduced from 130 to 30. However, it increased investment in technology R & D and turned to subdivision tracks with more technical threshold. Finally, it reversed the momentum of loss and achieved stable profits.
In 2016, alphago defeated human chess players and a new wave of artificial intelligence came. In 2017, AI was written into the government work report for the first time. China’s first national plan for artificial intelligence, the development plan for a new generation of artificial intelligence, was also released this year to systematically layout artificial intelligence at the national level.
Under the macro policy background, enterprises with forward-looking thinking take the lead in responding. In 2017, pan Xiaolei established a new direction for the company, turning to the field of AI hardware and promoting the iteration of R & D capability.
digital real integration gives birth to subversive innovation “technical power + product power” redefines word search experience
Under the background of double subtraction, intelligent education hardware for home school learning is developing rapidly. According to the 2022 report on China’s education intelligent hardware industry, the scale of China’s education intelligent hardware market in 2021 is 45.3 billion yuan, and the market scale is expected to be close to billion yuan in 2024.
Different from general electronic consumer products, intelligent education hardware and even all intelligent hardware are not a simple combination of software and hardware, but a new species born from the deep integration of traditional manufacturing and digital technology.
In December 2018, Netease Youdao, an intelligent learning company, was preparing to develop the second-generation dictionary pen, looking for hardware partners in Shenzhen and looking for Tianhe Zhiyuan with R & D capability. Relying on the precipitation of AI technology in the field of translation for more than 10 years, Youdao has broken through a variety of technical problems in the design of dictionary pen. Among them, the application of OCR image recognition and NMT neural network technology has subverted the traditional word search experience. Tianhe Zhiyuan is responsible for injecting the AI capability of Netease into the small electronic motherboard, so that the technology can realize its capability in hardware.
The difficulty of bilateral cooperation lies in the need to cross the thinking barrier between digital economy and manufacturing industry. Pan Xiaolei said that the thinking of the Internet is different from that of the manufacturing industry. “The software can be repaired in half a day by changing a bug, but the hardware can’t be iterated, and the two sides need to keep running in. Gangqiao, the head of Youdao intelligent hardware supply chain, also felt that the attitude of Shenzhen Hardware circle towards Internet companies is cautious,” because I don’t know how much Internet companies will adhere to and invest in hardware.
In August 2019, Youdao dictionary pen II was officially released, which was widely welcomed by the market. The sales of hardware business increased at a five fold rate in one year. In overseas markets such as Europe, America and Australia, Youdao dictionary pen also occupies market advantages based on its own technology and hardware capabilities, and contributes to international exchanges and communication with scientific and technological innovation.
promote high-quality economic development, from manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing, hand over China’s answer
Today, pan Xiaolei’s company has doubled its net profit and realized tens of millions of net profit every year. The additive effect of digital economy on the real economy began to show. During the development of Youdao dictionary pen, Tianhe Zhiyuan established a new R & D laboratory, the proportion of R & D personnel increased by 65%, and the construction of flexible supply chain was gradually promoted. Through the baptism of Internet companies, the digital infrastructure of traditional manufacturing industry is improving day by day.
Behind a “pen” is the Chinese answer to the intelligent transformation of the manufacturing industry. In 2021, the outline of the 14th five year plan pointed out that we should give full play to the advantages of Beijing Vastdata Technology Co.Ltd(603138) and enrich application scenarios, promote the deep integration of digital technology and the real economy, enable the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, optimize the production process with data, and give birth to Shenzhen New Industries Biomedical Engineering Co.Ltd(300832) , new business forms and new models.
Liu zhunlei, senior vice president of Netease Youdao, said that innovation is the mission and responsibility of entrepreneurs. In the future, we will continue to increase R & D investment, give full play to the advantages of scientific and technological innovation, explore the application of artificial intelligence in more learning scenarios, help the deep integration of digital economy and real economy, and contribute to China’s intelligent manufacturing.
Pan Xiaolei said, “from software to hardware, to scheme design, from chip to production and assembly, are all our own things of the Chinese people, and I am very proud to participate in them. We are confident that more Chinese intelligent products will be born in the future and give a Chinese answer for the transformation of the world’s manufacturing industry.”
