China Electronics Information Industry Development Research Institute, Liu Wenqiang, December 2020
Chapter I: Artificial Intelligence
By definition, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science that uses machines to simulate human thinking to perform learning, reasoning, and other work.
1.1 "Smart +" is becoming a starting point for transforming traditional industries. In 2019, "Smart +" first appeared in the government work report, which pointed out that it is necessary to adhere to innovation to lead development and cultivate new momentum. Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly important role in finance, education, industry, security, medical and many other fields. Artificial intelligence technology can not only optimize the accuracy, timeliness and scientificity of decision-making, but also achieve a high degree of automation in professional fields, greatly improve industrial efficiency, and become a new driving force for industry development. Under the guidance of national policies and strong market demand, the innovative application of the Internet in many fields such as medical care, pension, education, culture, and sports has developed rapidly, and new business models have continued to emerge with the development of "Internet +". Nowadays, "Internet +" is gradually evolving to "intelligence +", artificial intelligence technology is reshaping traditional industries, giving birth to a new "intelligence +" business model.
1.2 The development of 5G, blockchain and other technologies has helped artificial intelligence form a new application space
1.3 The importance of AI security has increased
1.4 National policies are frequently issued to accelerate the development of the artificial intelligence industry. In March 2019, the seventh meeting of the Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reform deliberated and adopted the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Deep Integration of Artificial Intelligence and the Real Economy, striving to promote the deep integration of artificial intelligence and the real economy and accelerate the formation of an intelligent economy. In August and September 2019, the Ministry of Science and Technology successively issued the "Guidelines for the Construction of the National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Open Innovation Platform" and the "Guidelines for the Construction of the National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Development Pilot Zone", accelerating the construction of the open innovation platform and the artificial intelligence innovation and development pilot zone, giving play to the leading demonstration role of industry leading enterprises, and encouraging the development of intelligent society test fields. As of August 2019, a total of 15 enterprises' relevant AI open platforms have been successfully selected as the national new generation of AI open innovation platforms, covering visual computing, smart education, basic software and hardware, inclusive finance, image perception and other fields
2.1 The industrial chain of artificial intelligence can be divided into basic layer, technical layer and application layer, of which the basic layer focuses on the construction of the basic support platform, the technical layer focuses on the research and development of core technologies, and the application layer pays more attention to application development.
2.2 The basic layer mainly includes the basic perception equipment of artificial intelligence and the computing power support of artificial intelligence. The perception function is mainly done by professional cameras and artificial intelligence-related sensors. The realization of computing power mainly relies on cloud computing and terminal computing. Basic cloud computing services such as servers, storage, and networks provide core computing capabilities for artificial intelligence. ASICs, FPGAs, and traditional GPU chips provide efficient hardware support for high-speed computing in artificial intelligence.
At the technical level, artificial intelligence basic services and artificial intelligence system platforms are two service models of artificial intelligence technology industry. Artificial intelligence basic services realize enterprise value by providing intelligent speech and language, computer vision, and other intelligent algorithms for downstream enterprises in the industry chain. The artificial intelligence system platform is a tool application that integrates relevant artificial intelligence algorithms, or integrates into a professional system to form an intelligent system to provide comprehensive intelligent services.
The application layer is based on artificial intelligence technology and mainly includes two categories: hardware products and scene services. Among them, hardware products include robots, unmanned systems, intelligent hardware, etc. Key scenario services include smart healthcare, smart education, smart finance, smart retail, smart factory, smart agriculture, smart city, smart home and intelligent transportation, etc., based on existing traditional industries, using artificial intelligence software and hardware and integrated services to upgrade traditional industries and improve the degree of intelligence.
3.1 The growth of operating income and net profit of the basic layer tends to be stable
3.2 The profitability of technical enterprises is enhanced, and the profit weight of the industrial chain is increased
Some technology-level enterprises have gradually formed stable business models and achieved profitable growth. At the same time, with the continuous maturity of the application of artificial intelligence technology, the demand of application-layer enterprises for artificial intelligence technology has increased, and technology-layer enterprises have begun to have more business discourse power.
3.3 Applications in education, urban operations, medicine and health, and finance have good profit margins
From the perspective of the net profit margin of various industry segments of artificial intelligence, the five fields of smart education, smart city, smart healthcare, AI life science research, and smart finance have achieved an average profit margin of more than 10%, as shown in Figure 1-5. In the development of artificial intelligence industry, it is easy to take the lead in forming a mature application system and business model. The field of intelligent driving requires high R&D investment at this stage, and enterprises such as entertainment, energy, and advertising are relatively insufficiently intelligent, and are in the period of business model exploration, with low profit margins. In the industrial field and robot manufacturing, due to its high income, high cost, and asset-heavy characteristics, although the profit level is relatively healthy, the profit margin is at a medium level compared with other industries.
From the overall distribution point of view, artificial intelligence enterprises are mainly concentrated in North China, East China and Central South China, and Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Zhejiang concentrate more than 70% of the country's artificial intelligence enterprises. East China has the largest number of listed companies in the field of artificial intelligence with 99
From the analysis of regional carrier distribution, most of the national high-tech industrial development zones are located in East China and Central and South China, and the regional high-tech industry-related policies and the synergistic development effect of high-tech industry aggregation can effectively promote the development of regional artificial intelligence industry at the macro level
4.1 Internet companies strengthen the strategic layout of artificial intelligence business In 2019, Google, Facebook, and Apple have all begun to focus on enhancing intelligent voice interaction technology. In the market environment of the gradual popularity of smart mobile terminals and smart home terminals, intelligent voice assistants such as Google's Google Assistant, Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana and Amazon's Alexa have become a new traffic entrance for artificial intelligence giants. At the same time, since 2018, Facebook's reality lab has been committed to cooperating with virtual reality hardware to develop independent intelligent assistants, which is expected to occupy the data traffic of new terminals from VR head-mounted display devices (hereinafter referred to as headsets).
4.2 The world's mainstream chip manufacturers have increased the layout of artificial intelligence
4.3 Leading enterprises use artificial intelligence to empower their own advantageous business lines
5.1 The market scale of Chinese industrial intelligence has grown steadily Since 2016, Chinese industrial intelligence has entered the market outbreak stage and continued to maintain a high market growth rate. In 2019, artificial intelligence enterprises began to accelerate the exploration of landing applications, basic layer and technology layer enterprises began to penetrate into the downstream of the application layer, artificial intelligence related application products are more abundant, for different application scenarios, artificial intelligence enterprises can provide more comprehensive intelligent solutions. In 2019, the market size of Chinese intelligence reached 48.93 billion yuan, with a growth rate of 27.5%
6.1 The growth rate of investment and financing events in the field of artificial intelligence has declined
6.2 AI algorithm capabilities and industry applications are important areas for capital layout
6.3 The number of Series A and angel rounds of investment in the field of artificial intelligence has plummeted, and the round of capital investment has begun to move backwards
7.1 Edge intelligence is about to enter the explosive stage from the early research stage, and with the rapid popularization of 5G technology, edge computing combined with 5G will promote the rapid development of edge intelligence.
7.2 Cross-media intelligence is an important direction for the improvement of AI technology capabilities, traditional AI technology usually focuses on human single perception, and the association between human perception is essential to achieve strong artificial intelligence
7.3 A high degree of automation is the biggest demand for artificial intelligence in traditional industries, and technologies such as autonomous unmanned systems, autonomous machine learning, and robot autonomous learning have become hot research, and artificial intelligence technology needs to be transformed from the mode of human regulation to the mode of machine autonomous exploration.
7.4 The innovation of the underlying related core algorithm model has obvious application performance improvement effects in the fields of sentiment analysis, interactive question answering, and machine translation. The field of intelligent speech and language has ushered in a period of rapid technology deployment. Breakthroughs in core technical capabilities can reshape the existing market structure.
7.5 Computer vision-related technologies such as face recognition, vehicle feature recognition, handwriting recognition, and text recognition are basically mature, and the industrialization process is accelerating. In the future, the deep integration of computer vision technology and traditional industries will become the key to industrialization. The demand for reliable, stable and high-precision industrial-grade market is not only a challenge for the development of computer vision, but also an opportunity for the industrialization of computer vision.
Chapter 2 5G
The fifth generation of mobile communication technology, also known as the fifth generation of mobile phone mobile communication standard, abbreviated as 5G, has the characteristics of high speed, wide bandwidth, high reliability and low latency, and can meet the application needs of users and industries such as virtual reality, ultra-high-definition video, intelligent manufacturing, and automatic driving in the future
On June 6, 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) officially issued 5G commercial licenses to China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom and China Radio and Television, marking the first year of 5G commercial use in the mainland.
In terms of terminals, the demand for smart phones, smart bracelets, smart wearable devices and other products will further increase; In terms of scenario applications, scenarios such as 4K/8K ultra-high-definition video, telemedicine, Internet of Vehicles, smart grid, and industrial Internet have emerged. In the current stage of 5G network construction, downstream opportunities continue to emerge, and the opportunity to deploy in advance cannot be lost.
At present, network construction has risen and scenario applications are far from mature, 5G communication equipment and terminal manufacturing industry has become the focus of the entire industrial chain, including terminals, base stations, bearer networks, access networks, core networks and other nodes from bottom to top, involving chips, optical fiber cables, optical modules, antennas, filters and other basic devices and switches, routers, towers, IDC servers and other main equipment. All links of the 5G communication industry chain are highly dependent, the supply chain is highly integrated, and the ownership of standards is highly crossed, forming a situation of water and milk blending.
Focusing on Huawei and ZTE, the two core main equipment enterprises, the mainland relies on each other and the supply chain is highly integrated nationwide. From the perspective of value chain segmentation, the two links of basic devices and terminals are more prominent, of which the total revenue of China's 5G communication basic device industry in the first three quarters of 2019 exceeded 200 billion yuan, and the revenue of terminal links exceeded 50 billion yuan. In other links, a situation of integrated development of various industries has been formed.
In the first three quarters of 2019, the value chain distribution of China's 5G communication infrastructure device layer is shown in the figure
Chapter 11: Ultra HD Video
Ultra HD video is the official name for the information display "4K resolution (4096×2160 pixels)" and "8K resolution (7680×4320 pixels)". Generally, terminal display, video production, network transmission and other equipment that can achieve 4K×2K resolution (3840×2160 pixels) and above resolution and pixels can be called ultra-high-definition equipment. The ultra-high-definition video industry involves dozens of related industries, including core components, video production equipment, network transmission equipment, terminal presentation equipment and applications and services from the perspective of the industry chain.
(1) The ultra-high-definition video development plan of the central government, Guangdong, Beijing and other eight provinces and cities has gradually landed, and with the promotion of 5G commercialization and international events such as the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, China's ultra-high-definition video industry has entered an accelerated deployment stage. (2) China's ultra-high-definition video industry is mainly concentrated in three layers and five links, namely: basic layer (core components), core layer (network transmission equipment, video production equipment, terminal display equipment), and application layer (applications and services). (3) The overall operating income and net profit of the basic layer achieved steady growth, but the panel field showed double "negative growth", and the net profit of 4K/8K chip fields such as storage and video processing was much higher than that of panels; The overall revenue and net profit of the core layer have achieved rapid growth, and the net profit margin of video production equipment and network transmission equipment enterprises is generally higher than that of terminal display enterprises; The overall revenue and net profit of the application layer maintained rapid growth, the net profit of 2C-end applications such as entertainment was low, and the net profit of 2B-end such as industrial manufacturing and intelligent transportation led the 4K/8K application market. (4) With the key layout of 8 provinces (cities) including Guangdong, Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan, Qingdao, and Anhui, the development of China's ultra-high-definition video industry will gradually show a trend of "eight-core distribution and multi-point driving" in the future. At present, Guangdong is the province with the most complete links in the ultra-high-definition video industry, and it is also developing the fastest.
(5) Affected by favorable factors such as the macro policy environment, the gradual improvement of the standard system, the commercialization of 5G, technological progress and application promotion, the overall market size reached 558.56 billion yuan in 2019, with a growth rate of 67.3%. (6) From the perspective of investment potential, audio and video processing chips, codec chips, image sensors, OLED, Mini LED, video production systems, radio and television, cultural entertainment, major event broadcasting/live broadcast and other fields are worthy of attention.
First, the demand continues to increase, 5G commercialization, event holding and other industries to promote the rapid development of the industryWith the integration and application of ultra-high-definition video and various industries, new formats, new models and new technologies continue to emerge. On the 2C side, the promotion of smart terminals and 5G commercialization has increased the proportion of video data in consumer network traffic, and consumers' requirements for ultra-large screen, ultra-high-definition, and zero-lag video have gradually escalated. On the 2B side, enterprises also need higher quality, more detailed, larger memory ultra-high-definition display for security monitoring, medical health, industrial manufacturing and other fields, and the market demand of "4 trillion yuan" continues to promote the rapid development of the ultra-high-definition video industry
In February 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the State Administration of Radio and Television, and the Central Radio and Television Station jointly issued the "Action Plan for the Development of the Ultra-HD Video Industry (2019-2022)", which puts forward the main focus and key development directions of the mainland ultra-high-definition video industry in six aspects, including breaking through core key devices, promoting the industrialization of key products, and improving network transmission capabilities
The strategic positioning of the ultra-high-definition video industry has been further strengthened at the national policy level, and the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasizes that "strengthen applied basic research, expand the implementation of major national science and technology projects, highlight key common technologies, cutting-edge leading technologies, modern engineering technologies, and disruptive technological innovations, and provide strong support for building a scientific and technological power, a quality power, a space power, a network power, a transportation power, a digital China, and a smart society." As a new round of major technological innovation after video digitization and high-definition, ultra-high-definition video is an important starting point for in-depth implementation of innovation-driven strategy and efforts to promote supply-side structural reform.
In 2019, 8K resolution is no longer a conceptual "carnival", ultra-high-definition video companies have launched a variety of 8K products: LG, Sharp, Skyworth, TCL, Samsung and other domestic and foreign manufacturers have launched 8K TVs, ZTE released the next generation of 8K large video smart set-top box, Samsung launched quantum dot 8K processor chips, 4K Garden officially launched 8K content production, but at present 8K products are still mainly concentrated in hardware fields such as TVs, the lack of key core components, lack of content is still 8K, Common problems in the development of 4K.
(1) Video production systems and other video production equipment field is the hot spot and focus of ultra-high-definition video development, this field gathers a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises, at present, the mainland has initially had ultra-high-definition video content editing system, network production and broadcast system and other independent research and development capabilities, capital can focus on. (2) 4K/8K display panels will be upgraded by LCD to OLED, Mini LED, Mirco LED and other emerging display fields in the future. (3) Audio and video processing chips, codec chips, image sensors and other fields are affected by large investment amounts and long cycles, and high risks will coexist for a long time. (4) Radio and television, cultural entertainment, major event broadcasting/live broadcasting, etc. are the current and future important application scenarios of ultra-high-definition video, ultra-high-definition cameras, ultra-high-definition monitors and other video acquisition and production equipment is also the difficulty and focus of domestic development.