Recently, Alibaba's research and development arm, Ali Damo Academy, announced the closure of its world's largest autonomous driving laboratory. After this news was released, it caused a shock to the entire industry, as Ali's R&D department, Ali Damo Academy has always performed very well, and many Ali and even domestic top technologies are developed from here.
Coincidentally, there was news recently that Musk's visit to China, the main purpose of which is to promote fully autonomous driving in the Chinese market. In contrast, many foreign media have ridiculed that the fig leaf of Chinese science and technology has been unveiled.
What does Ali's closure of the Dharma Academy mean
Autonomous driving technology belongs to a research direction in the field of artificial intelligence, with the improvement of data transmission technology, automatic driving has gradually become a possibility, so in recent years, autonomous driving technology has also become a hot research and development direction in the field of artificial intelligence. As a field where humans do not have much to do, autonomous driving technology requires a lot of trial and error, so research in this field requires a lot of manpower and material investment, and it also needs a certain amount of time to accumulate.
For DAMO Academy, the fundamental purpose of research and development is still to make money, unmanned driving technology has invested a lot of manpower and material resources in the research and development stage, although certain results have been achieved, but there is still a certain distance from output. What's more, Alibaba itself does not have an automobile-related business, which means that the revenue that can be obtained after the success of the technology is unknown.
Ali Damo Academy announced the suspension of autonomous driving-related research and development, in fact, does not mean that Ali has completely abandoned the research and development of automatic driving technology, from the situation of this announcement, it is more like an internal resource adjustment. Because autonomous driving cannot generate benefits at present or even in the short term, funds and resources are integrated in the direction of marketization.
For Ali's announcement to stop the research and development of autonomous driving technology at DAMO Academy, some insiders analyzed that this is the result of Ali's structural adjustment and market-oriented reform, and some people believe that this is caused by Ali's internal enterprise management is not perfect.
As an enterprise that started from e-commerce and gradually transformed into the field of technology, the root of Alibaba's e-commerce business lies in e-commerce-related business, which can also be seen from the focus of Alibaba's technology research and development and market exploration. In the fields with strong connection with e-commerce such as new retail and digital transformation, Ali has achieved quite good results, but in the fields of unmanned driving, blockchain, which are not strong enough with e-commerce and economic connectivity, Ali has invested a lot of money and manpower and material resources several times, and has not achieved any significant results, but has had a certain impact on Ali's image.
After all, Ali has repeatedly announced major technological breakthroughs in the field of unmanned driving, but now it has ended in vain, and suddenly announced the abandonment of relevant technology research and development.
Market-oriented change
Many people combine Ali's announcement to stop the research and development of unmanned driving technology at the DAMO Academy with Musk's visit to China to vigorously promote the promotion and application of fully autonomous driving technology in the Chinese market, so as to conclude that China's scientific and technological research and development is inferior to the United States. There are even many foreign media that the fig leaf of Chinese science and technology has been unveiled.
In fact, the two are not the same thing. Musk's fully autonomous driving is more like an auxiliary tool for the driver, although it can achieve a certain degree of driving without a driver, but in fact it still needs to be human-oriented. Ali's previous research on driverless technology focuses more on the combination of artificial intelligence and big data, through the analysis and deployment of the actions of each vehicle on the route, and driving completely in the form of artificial intelligence.
Therefore, comparing Tesla's fully autonomous driving with Ali's self-driving technology, it is completely unnecessary to conclude that Chinese technology is not good. In addition to the different content of specific research and development, Tesla, as a new energy vehicle company, is naturally stronger than Ali, which is mainly based on e-commerce, in terms of automobile-related research and development.
After all, for Tesla, the developed technology can be installed on its own products, while for Alibaba, the developed technology also needs to find the upstream and downstream supply chain and need to tap market demand. Comparing Tesla's fully autonomous driving technology with Ali's driverless technology, it is essentially similar to comparing Tesla and Alibaba's sales on the e-commerce platform of Double 11.
Judging from the news that Ali announced the suspension of Damo Academy on unmanned driving technology, Ali is likely to carry out market-oriented reforms. That is to say, Ali's future research and development will be closer to e-commerce, digital economy and other market-related content, reducing the field and technology of unmanned driving, which is a future development trend, but has little to do with its own business.
Market-oriented reform can also bring some advantages to Alibaba's development, as Ali itself said: this is to better grasp market opportunities, improve overall efficiency and enhance core competitiveness.
Written at the end: the development of science and technology is a long-term investment, and if you want to break through the top technology, you need to be prepared for continuous investment, not only Chinese companies, but also foreign companies. All technology takes time to accumulate, so there is no need to slack off because of a momentary setback, and Chinese technology is bound to rise.