Write on the front:
As a self-media in the field of science and technology, what you do every day is to communicate with people in the industry. Recently, practitioners in various fields and companies have generally talked about the view that today is the coldest time in China's technology for several years, and the severity even exceeds the Sino-US trade war and the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020.
Among them, the Shanghai epidemic is of course the most important influencing factor, but it is also mixed with a lot of uncertainty outside the epidemic. For example, the anxiety of global supply chains, the undiminished technology blockade, and even the backlog of various long-term problems.
For the tech industry and tech practitioners, this is a cruel spring with many problems.
Of course, under the epidemic, there are eggs. Compared with key industries such as civil aviation and tourism, as well as the larger civil industries, the damage to the technology industry may not be worth mentioning. After all, science and technology have basic supply and demand, state blessings, and a certain degree of cyclicality. On the whole, the life of technology practitioners is also relatively generous, and they will not fall into a crisis quickly.
But the hardships and perseverance of this spring are still worth seeing and recording. Because science and technology is not just an industrial vein, it is the foundation of industrialization and the door to the future.
Technology out of today's predicament, may also mean that more enterprises, industries, regions, people can find a way to go out.
Facing the problem and finding the problem is also part of the exploration of the answer.
The biggest difficulty in China's technology industry today is obviously from the Shanghai epidemic.
The epidemic itself cannot be compared, and life and safety cannot be compared, but the intensity of the industry impact brought about by the epidemic may be quantifiable. From this perspective, it is easy to draw a conclusion: the impact of the Shanghai epidemic on the technology industry is not only much greater than the original Wuhan epidemic in the long run, but the short-term direct impact is probably not on an order of magnitude.
Wuhan is also an important town of science and technology in China, and plays an important role in the fields of optoelectronics and high-precision manufacturing. However, it is obviously different from Shanghai's position in the territory of China's three cities of science and technology, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. And although the Wuhan epidemic caused short-term panic and helplessness, it was quickly controlled, and then set off a boom in the resumption of work and production. Since the outbreak of the epidemic in Shanghai, the situation has become more complicated, and controversies and problems have emerged frequently. After Shanghai unseals, it seems that there is still too much uncertainty about whether it will set off an industrial recovery boom or continue to increase the fight against the epidemic.
If at the beginning of 2020, the wuhan epidemic hit the arms of the technology industry, then this spring, the technology industry greeted the epidemic straight to the throat.
With the suspension of the central axis of the industry, emotions such as panic, exhaustion, confusion, etc. are spreading.
What does Shanghai mean for the tech industry?
First of all, it seems that we must revisit the old question: What does the city of Shanghai really mean for China's technological development?
Of course, countless data can support the discussion of this issue, and the significance of Shanghai for china's economy, especially high-tech industries, may have long been a global consensus. When the city falls into a short-term shutdown, and all tasks are attributed to anti-epidemic prevention and material allocation, we can see from the micro level why scientific and technological development cannot be without Shanghai.
On the whole, Shanghai is China's science and technology exchange center, industrial center and supply center, and the radiation situation of the entire scientific and technological territory is very complicated, and it is a real place to lead the whole body.
From the perspective of supply chain, from small mobile phones to large lithography machines, perhaps every technology product circulating in the market has some parts to pass through Shanghai and the Yangtze River Delta region. This does not include the supply chain import and transit responsibilities undertaken by the Port of Shanghai itself.
China's science and technology is the biggest beneficiary of globalization, more accustomed than other countries, and relies on efficient technology circulation, talent exchanges and capital circulation. Shanghai is the most effective window for scientific and technological exchanges. The exchange of money, people, and technology is frequent in the city. There is a mature international interactive platform, but also the most convenient transportation network. There is a common sense that if you want to open a global technology exhibition in China, you can almost only open it in Shanghai. Because only Shanghai's international flight throughput capacity can meet the needs of enterprise personnel scattered in various countries around the world, they gather in a Chinese mainland city in a very short time.
In the third year of the epidemic, Shanghai still has a key role that has been overlooked, that is, it has become a "safe haven" for domestic scientific and technological interaction to some extent. Technology is a highly exchange-dependent industry, but after the epidemic, Beijing has always maintained a high degree of caution in holding collective activities, while Shenzhen is adjacent to Hong Kong, and the epidemic has been repeatedly pulled. This makes Shanghai the most certain stage for scientific and technological exchanges.
This certainty is critical, and often a scientific and technological activity requires months of investment and preparation. Once the date is approaching, it is told that it will be cancelled due to the epidemic, which will not only cause huge losses, but also disrupt the rhythm of the industry. Shanghai's relatively stable epidemic prevention and control situation, coupled with the encouragement of economic activities, has made it the only choice for many scientific and technological activities after the epidemic.
This also makes the impact of the epidemic in Shanghai far more intense than any previous outbreak in one place.
Complex supply chain risks
In the past few days, the risks brought by the Shanghai epidemic to the technology supply chain have begun to surface. In China's science and technology circles, there are so-called Shanghai research and development, Shenzhen production, Beijing propaganda. This is, of course, a simple categorization, but it also shows the location of Shanghai in China's technology supply chain.
If the factories in Shenzhen and Dongguan do not start work and the warehouses do not ship, the technology market may have nothing to sell immediately. However, the things developed in Shanghai cannot come out, the basic parts cannot be produced, and the imported high-end raw materials cannot come in, and the negative impact may continue to appear after half a year or a year, or even longer.
The basis of science and technology is hardware, and the basis of hardware is chips. Shanghai is the most complete, highest integration and largest industrial location in the domestic integrated circuit industry chain. Its industrial scale has exceeded 200 billion yuan, and it occupies a large number of irreplaceable high-end chips that can be produced in China. At the same time, Shanghai and the surrounding Kunshan, Suzhou and other places are also the main concentration of international chip companies and chip foundries. The whole of Shanghai brings together more than 600 semiconductor companies, forming a semiconductor industry cluster dominated by Zhangjiang.
After the outbreak of the epidemic in Shanghai, everyone is generally concerned about the situation of chip and other technology product foundries. Although such enterprises also have some shutdowns, they are relatively closed on the whole, and workers eat, live and work in closed factories, which is relatively affected by the epidemic. However, in addition to foundries, Shanghai's semiconductor industry chain also includes a variety of research and development, testing, design, trade and other enterprises, most of which are in Pudong, which is the first batch of areas that have been blocked after the start of the epidemic. These businesses either work from home or simply shut down, and the resulting supply chain impact can be long-term and significant.
Semiconductors are only a representative of Shanghai's advantageous location in science and technology, in many fields of science and technology, Shanghai has a cluster layout, and biased towards the upstream of the industry. The uncertainty of this epidemic will bring continuous shocks to several supply chains. For example, Shanghai is the R&D and manufacturing center of domestic new energy vehicles, bringing together a large number of new car companies represented by Tesla; Shanghai has developed a huge artificial intelligence industry chain in recent years, with more than 1,000 artificial intelligence companies, and Shanghai is also an important research and development base for technology giants such as BAT, Huawei, and Microsoft.
Uncertainties such as the suspension of Shanghai and the possible changes in epidemic prevention policies after this round of epidemics will bring many troubles to the entire technology supply chain.
The obvious problem is that there will inevitably be a deadlock in which many industries are difficult to start and products cannot be produced; the hidden problem is that the pace of research and development is disrupted, and the raw material import market fluctuates, which may lead to the overall scientific and technological process being slowed down.
Disrupted business trajectories
The work of technology practitioners is characterized by the need for intensive travel, especially market and brand personnel. At the end of the year, although everyone has traveled all over the country, the basic route is Beijing, Shanghai, shenzhen and back and forth. The long-term development of the technology industry has made these three cities, or three industrial locations, form a relationship that is both competitive and complementary. It's hard to go to just one or two of these places, and it's hard to go to other cities frequently.
When Shanghai was trapped by the epidemic, we all knew that it was very difficult to get in and out of the Yangtze River Delta. But at the same time, the epidemic in Shenzhen and Guangzhou is still repeatedly tug-of-war, from time to time, and Beijing has highly increased the need to prevent the epidemic in Beijing. The current situation has led to the travel, communication, exchange, and display required by the technology industry, which are basically paralyzed.
Some people may say that since it is a high-tech field, how can remote communication not work? In theory, this seems to be the case, and the tempering in recent years has also made telecommuting and live broadcasting of conferences the norm.
But this kind of communication is far from meeting the internal needs of the technology industry. Whether it is toC or toB, the technology industry is an industry where technology updates very quickly and always evolves at a high frequency. Every year there is something new to the customer, and every quarter there needs to be a certain degree of upgrade. This also leads to the need for market and brand personnel to have frequent contact with customers and intensive display. Only in this way can we match supply and demand and reach cooperation.
The form of live conference may be more suitable for the release of mobile phones, the Internet and other public-oriented releases, but it cannot meet the communication needs of toB. A lot of cooperation in this field is talked about before the booth and between the summit, before the supply and demand sides did not even know how to cooperate, so intensive meetings, meetings, curation, and publicity were needed. The effective operation of the overall business trajectory depends on daily business trips, weekly meetings, and monthly releases.
When Shanghai, an originally rare communication platform, is closed, and there are frequent epidemics in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, and Beijing is impossible at all, under the strict form of epidemic prevention, no one will be willing to stand up and assume this function. Of course, the keyboard man can say, why do you do useless gatherings during the epidemic? It is even said that those who "wander around" are either stupid or bad.
But who would spend money, take risks, and do "useless" gatherings? Who wants to wander around for no reason?
What's even more frightening is, how big is the risk of spillover after the Epidemic in Shanghai? How will the epidemic prevention policy go? There are too many uncertainties hanging over the horizon.
More importantly, "morale"
Have you found that technology companies have no sense of existence in this round of the epidemic?
When the epidemic first broke out in early 2020, AI, big data, and the Internet of Things took turns to fight, setting off a vigorous anti-epidemic boom in science and technology. It was a story that could be sung and wept, and now the health codes we are accustomed to, AI infrared temperature measurement, and unmanned distribution are all direct products of the anti-epidemic of science and technology at that time, and even virus analysis and vaccine development have also incorporated a lot of information and intelligent technology.
But in this round of the epidemic, there is very little that technology and Internet companies can do. The technology that can contribute has long been put into the frontline of the fight against the epidemic, and the support for the fight against the epidemic has long been normalized. Only yourself or your colleagues are isolated in the epidemic area, a business trip is followed by a seal, various matters determined by meetings are difficult to advance, budgets are being cut, and KPI pressure is surging.
At this time, the face of the epidemic is no longer the excitement of the same battlefield, but some deep feelings of powerlessness.
Another factor that has hit the morale of the technology industry is the outbreak of the epidemic in Shanghai. You know, Shanghai is a pioneer in scientific and technological epidemic prevention. A large number of technologies are involved in it, and most of the budget is spent on digital construction. After this round of epidemics, how will the investment in science and technology be judged to be useless? Will we still believe in the power of technology to guard society in the future?
In a losing team, a player's highlight performance often does not help, not to mention that he may not have the opportunity to perform at all.
At this time, technology companies can only do business step by step. They cannot combine the facts and participate in the anti-epidemic work, nor do they dare to publicize their products and technologies with great fanfare. Everything seems out of place, and everyone is waiting to hear some good news.
What happens next?
Will the tech industry spend the year in endless epidemic prevention and lockdown? Or is there some kind of opportunity, a certain policy, a certain technology blowing the clarion call to fight back?
Generally speaking, the major benefits of science and technology come from three aspects: there is a surge in market upgrade demand, such as population and consumption dividends; there are technical benefits that can be referred to from the United States, such as meta-universe and deep learning; and there are major policy promotions, such as new infrastructure. This year, American scientific and technological innovation is lackluster, and the technology blockade line is still stubborn. Policy orientation may be able to promote market revitalization in the short term, but it does not solve the fundamental problems, let alone make it difficult to predict.
So can we start from the domestic market and use the market demand of enterprises and consumers to offset the negative impact of the epidemic?
This may be the answer to summer, autumn, or even the next spring.
Solidarity is not only needed when lockdowns and fights the pandemic are needed. Then return to the normal state of economic development, or adapt to the new normal, revive the industry, and continue to forge ahead, only then should we be together and need to be more consistent.
Since the beginning of modernization, all the stories about the future have revolved around technology.
Spring is still going on, and we are waiting for a counterattack.