"Seeing" is the reaction: the eve of the visual AI outbreak Kai-Fu Lee and Lei Jun added weight

Per reporter: Zhao Wenqi Per editor: Liu Xuemei

In the process of artificial intelligence going out of the laboratory and combining with the actual scene, more segments are exploding with new commercial potential, which also arouses the attention of capital.

On July 6, Prophesee, a neuromimetic vision solutions company, announced the completion of tens of millions of dollars in Series C financing, led by Innovation Factory, followed by Xiaomi and Shanghai Weihao Chuangxin, and several old shareholders increased.

"Daily Economic News" reporter learned that Punovis is headquartered in Paris, France, has been supported by well-known investors in North America, Europe and Japan, the company's research and development of the original vision (Metavision) sensors and algorithms can be understood as "neuromimetic machine eye", imitating the way the human eye and brain work, applied to autonomous driving, mobile devices, healthcare, industrial automation, Internet of Things and other fields.

This is also the first time that the innovation workshop has sold in the European market. Innovation workshops have always been laid out around ai application scenarios, and the AI unicorn companies that have previously invested include Momenta, WeRide, AInnovation, 4 Paradigm (4Paradigm), Horizon Robotics and so on. Among them, Innovation Qizhi submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at the end of June, sprinting to the domestic "AI+ manufacturing first stock".

"Neuromimetic sensing technology actually originated around the 1990s, and began to really enter the development of technology for commercialization seven years ago, which is also about the time when PunoPhis was founded. Punuoris has invited this technology out of the laboratory, carried out commercial exploration in various industries, and continuously optimized, polished and iterated on this technology. The reason for investing at this point in time is because we believe that the maturity of this technology has finally reached the point in time on the eve of explosive growth, and we are optimistic about the potential of large-scale commercial use of this technology. Wang Zhenxiang, investment director of the innovation workshop responsible for the project, said in an interview with the media, including the reporter of the Daily Economic News.

All along, artificial intelligence "black technology" has emerged in an endless stream, but from stepping out of the laboratory to achieving commercial landing, it is facing no small practical challenge. And Punophis' "neuromimetic machine eye" is landing in more scenes.

According to public information, Punovis is a neuromimetic vision system research and development company, and its metavision sensor patents and AI algorithms introduce a new computer vision paradigm based on the working principles of the human eye and brain.

At present, many machine vision technologies follow the traditional imaging principle - that is, the machine sees a still image of 25 frames per second, and further identification and analysis is carried out by intelligently parsing each frame of the image. However, this "frame-based" imaging method not only makes the machine's "eye" and "brain" speed mismatch, the system response time is slow, and the machine records every frame and stores a large amount of useless data, generating a large amount of redundant data and consuming system processing resources.

Inspired by the human eye's retina and how the brain works, Punovis created neuromimetic sensors and bio-inspired algorithms to change sensors based on image still frames to "event-based" vision systems, also known as "neuromimetic machine eyes." At present, the technology has been applied to autonomous driving, mobile devices, healthcare, industrial automation, Internet of Things and other fields.

The person in charge of PunuoRis Greater China demonstrated the "neuromimetic machine eye" on the spot, which was photographed by reporter Zhao Wenqi

In the field of mobile devices, for example, the "neural mimic machine eye" can bring a huge boost to traditional cameras. The most advanced slow-motion technology can only show good results in bright light, which is difficult to do indoors. With the neuromorphic pro-vision sensor, there is no limit to exposure time, even in low light and at 10,000 frames per second, noise is eliminated, shutter rolling, or flickering effects are possible.

Li Jianbin, managing partner of the strategic investment department of Xiaomi Group, said that Xiaomi has paid close attention to the fields of neuromimetic vision and artificial intelligence technology, and PunuoRis has accumulated deeply in this field. This time, Xiaomi's strategic investment, the industry believes that it will further accelerate the depth of landing on mobile devices.

Luca Verre, co-founder and CEO of Punova Vision, said via video link at the launch of the financing that based on this round of financing cooperation, Punovis will accelerate the development and commercialization of hardware and software products for next-generation neuromimetic visual sensing technology; plan product routes for emerging markets; and improve infrastructure to support operations and scale expansion.

It is understood that PunuoRis China headquarters has landed in Shanghai, further accelerating the exploration of commercial landing in the ecological fields of semiconductors, industry, robotics, Internet of Things and mobile devices in the Chinese market. At the same time, the company will continue to update its strategy to meet the development needs of the target market segments, including mobile devices, automotive, AR and industrial automation.

It can be seen that after the exploration of the deep integration of artificial intelligence and specific application scenarios in the past two years, artificial intelligence is closer to large-scale commercial landing than ever before. Technologies such as deep learning, transfer learning, and reinforcement learning have also begun to penetrate into specific industry areas, which allows capital to see development opportunities in this blue ocean.

PwC research predicts that by 2030, AI will contribute $15.7 trillion to the global economy, and these economic gains will come mainly from China, with 26% of China's GDP growth coming from AI in 2030, compared to 14.5% of North American GDP growth.

The "Daily Economic News" reporter learned that from the contact project to the final choice of investment, the innovation workshop continued to pay attention to and track PunuoPhis for three years, and witnessed its initial research and development, and gradually landed in some scenarios. Choosing to sell at this time also means that capital sees greater opportunities in this area.

Kai-Fu Lee, Chairman and CEO of Innovation Factory, said that Punophis' neuromimetic machine eye technology has great potential in many fields, including computational photography, autonomous driving, industrial automation, Internet of Things, healthcare, AR and VR, bringing cutting-edge technological breakthroughs to machine vision applications that have gradually become popular in the industry.

"Provision's advanced technology in the field of neuromimetic vision will open up more possibilities and opportunities for the development of AI and machine vision technology, and help more industries achieve automation, safety and efficiency improvements." He said.

Wang Zhenxiang said that mobile phone CIS (contact image sensor Contact image sensor) is a very large field, 2018 has reached a market size of more than 15 billion US dollars, and Punuo PhaseS this round of recognition including capital and Xiaomi and Shanghai Weihao Chuangxin, is also a significant signal that it will become the next generation of CIS.

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