Science and Technology Weekly|Ali for "handsome"; New progress of Pangu large model; Dragon Boat Festival welcomes the peak of travel

Ali changed "handsome", Daniel Zhang will step down as chairman of Ali Group

On June 20, Alibaba announced that with the approval of the board of directors of Alibaba Holding Group, Daniel Zhang will step down as chairman and CEO of Alibaba Holding Group on September 10 this year. Daniel Zhang as Chairman of the Board and CEO positions will be replaced by Tsai Chongxin and Wu Yongming, respectively. While serving as CEO of Alibaba Group, Wu Yongming continues to serve as Chairman of Taotian Group.

In his letter to all employees, Daniel Zhang revealed two major reasons for stepping down, one is that the complete spin-off of Alibaba Cloud Intelligent Group has been launched, and it is in the most critical period of upward development, and it must be fully devoted; Second, considering the requirements of standardized governance of the company in the process of spin-off, it is no longer appropriate for Daniel Zhang individual to serve as the chairman and CEO of the two companies at the same time. After that, Daniel Zhang will serve full-time as Chairman and CEO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligent Group, focusing on Alibaba Cloud.

Comments: With the departure of Daniel Zhang and the leadership of Tsai Chongxin and Wu Yongming in Alibaba Group, Alibaba's "founders" are further returning to important positions. Cai Chongxin joined Alibaba Group in 1999 and is one of the founders of Alibaba, Wu Yongming is also one of the partners and founders of Alibaba, is Alibaba's "old man", and according to the list of boards of directors of the six major business groups previously announced by Alibaba, the "eighteen arhats" will also deeply influence the future board decisions of Alibaba's business groups. Under the fierce market competition, Ali chose to believe in the combat effectiveness of the founding team again. In addition, the simultaneous selection of Tsai Chongxin and Wu Yongming also means that Alibaba Group is concerned about investment matters. Both have rich investment backgrounds.

Huawei's Pangu model will be upgraded in July

At the first stop of Huawei Developer Co-creation Day in Shenzhen, the relevant person in charge of Huawei said that the HUAWEI CLOUD Pangu model will usher in a major upgrade in July.

Wang Chen, an AI technology planning expert at Huawei, said that it is currently in the stage of alternating from the second generation of artificial intelligence to the third generation of artificial intelligence. Compared with the second generation of artificial intelligence, the current artificial intelligence is "knowledge + data driven", which means that the AI system will have the ability to think about human thinking such as common sense experience reasoning. The big model is essentially an interactive revolution, and generative AI lowers the threshold for the use of software and hardware, and is expected to become a unified entrance to the intelligent world.

Comments: Huawei's exploration of large models was launched in 2019 and the HUAWEI CLOUD Pangu model was released in April 2021. However, at present, the players of large models have approached 100, the market competition is fierce, and it is not easy for Huawei to break through. In addition, problems such as false information and malicious code are also challenges in the current development of AI, and how to use AI responsibly requires the joint efforts of AI platform providers, developers, and practitioners.

Musk and Zuckerberg "date"

On June 22, Twitter boss and Tesla CEO Elon Musk suddenly tweeted that he was preparing for a "cage match" with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. "If he (Zuckerberg) laughs, I'm ready to fight in a 'cage." Musk wrote in a tweet.

Zuckerberg then posted on Instagram, Meta's social platform: "Send me your location. In response, Musk suggested that the venue be the "Octagon" fighting arena in Las Vegas.

Comments: Two technology tycoons with a total wealth of nearly $340 billion agreed to divide the victory and defeat in the form of sports competition, which is still related to their respective "business". Meta will launch a Twitter competitor called Threads. It has also been reported that Threads is a standalone, text-based social networking app that will be deeply integrated with Instagram.

The Dragon Boat Festival welcomes the peak of travel

On June 21, Didi released data predicting that the demand for Dragon Boat taxi will increase by 50% year-on-year. June 21 will be the peak of taxi demand. During the holidays, the morning peak lasts longer, and the evening peak and night travel demand will also rise. AutoNavi Map's "2023 Dragon Boat Festival Travel Forecast Report" also shows that due to the impact of the festival, it is expected that from 14 pm on June 21, the pressure of high-speed traffic across the country will gradually increase; June 22 is the peak of high-speed outbound congestion; June 24 is the peak of high-speed return congestion.

Comments: With the recovery of the tourism market, multi-platform data shows that consumers' willingness to travel during this year's Dragon Boat Festival is high, and it is expected that a small peak of travel will be formed on June 21 and 24. In addition, the "graduation season" also ushered in a boom in graduation travel. According to data from Meituan and Dianping, in the past week, the search volume of keywords related to "graduation trip" doubled year-on-year, and the number of strategy notes increased by 1139%. In Shandong, Hebei, Shaanxi and other places, the number of scenic spots and study routes that have appeared in textbooks such as scenic spots along the Yellow River and Baiyangdian is high. The cultural in-depth experience tour of "following the textbook to check in" is becoming a highlight of summer tourism consumption.

Tencent released the industry model platform

On June 19, Tencent Cloud held the Industry Big Model and Intelligent Application Technology Summit, announcing the R&D progress of Tencent Cloud industry big model for the first time, relying on the Tencent Cloud TI platform to build a selected store for industry large models, providing customers with one-stop MaaS (Model-as-a-Service) one-stop services to help customers build exclusive large models and intelligent applications.

Comments: Compared with the caution of general-purpose large models at the group level, Tencent CSIG (Cloud and Smart Industry Business Group) took the lead in releasing industry large models to respond to the questions and anxieties of industry customers. However, Tencent's industry model is still in its infancy, and many aspects need to be co-created with partners so that Tencent can have a deeper understanding of know-how and specific scenario needs in specific industries.

In June, 89 games were given version numbers, including Tencent, Netease, and Station B

On June 21, the State Press and Publication Administration issued the sixth domestic online game version number this year, a total of 89 games received game version numbers, and the total number of single-batch version numbers reached the highest in the past three years. Including Tencent King Honor IP game "Star Dawn", NetEase "Yanyun Sixteen Voices", Lilith "Yuanguang 84", B Station "Blind Box Party", Sanqi Interactive Entertainment "Dragon Knight Academy" and other key products have all obtained version numbers. In addition, manufacturers such as Thunder Games, TOEIC Network, CMGE, Youzu, Le Element, and Kingsoft have also obtained version numbers.

Comments: This batch has a total of 82 mobile games, 6 mobile + client dual-platform games, and 1 client game. The total quantity has increased compared to the previous batch (86 units). Since the beginning of this year, the overall number and timing of domestic game version distribution have become normalized, and more than 80 domestic online games have been approved every month, of which mobile games account for the majority, and the supply of the game industry has recovered steadily.

Rongda's net profit in the first half of the year will double, and the photoresist plate will be hot again

Rongda Photosensitive (300576.SZ) announced on June 19 that the second quarter of this year's performance forecast said that the net profit attributable to the parent in the first half of the year is expected to be 40.9618 million yuan to 47.1682 million yuan, an increase of 98% to 128% year-on-year, mainly because the company's sales gross margin increased, equity incentive expenses declined, and its stock price rose by more than 10%. Recently, the photoresist sector has regained its popularity, and the 20 daylight resist concept index (885864) reported 2430.420 points, an increase of 0.22%, and the sector index rose continuously within ten days, up 4% within ten days.

Comments: In the first half of 2023, the domestic photoresist market is showing a stable state, but the industry's utilization rate has not yet returned to the normal level. Prismark, a market research agency, predicts that in the long run, the domestic PCB (printed circuit board) market may still be in a downward period in 2023, and the overall market size will decline from $81.7 billion in 2022 to $78.4 billion, a decline of about 4%. This will have an impact on the upstream photoresist industry for PCB manufacturing.

Hongbo shares remind that there are many risks in the AI computing power operation center

After the 18-day extension, Hongbo issued the "Announcement on the Response to the 2022 Annual Report Inquiry Letter" in response to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's previous inquiry on the annual report on June 20. The announcement responded to the operation mode and cooperation stability of the Beijing AI Innovation Empowerment Center, which the company cooperated with NVIDIA closely watched by the outside world. Regarding the risks of cooperation with NVIDIA, Hongbo said that AI computing power operation and GPU cloud business are in the early stage of development in China, lack of application practice environment and professionals with practical experience, and may face internal risks of declining profits due to lack of team manpower and increased R&D investment during project construction and operation; The external face the risk of uncontrollable changes in the international political situation and the risk of exchange rate changes involved in equipment procurement.

Comments: In 2022, the operating income of Hongbo Co., Ltd. decreased by 5.01% year-on-year, the net profit attributable to the parent decreased by 921.42% year-on-year, and the non-net profit attributable to the parent deduction decreased by 815.43% year-on-year, and was negative for five consecutive years. Up to now, the Beijing AI Innovation Empowerment Center has invested 42.8561 million yuan. It remains to be seen whether the joint construction of an AI computing power operation center with NVIDIA can help Hongbo reverse the decline in performance.

Hon Hai Group has entered quantum computers and hopes to launch them in 2025

Liu Yangwei, chairman of Hon Hai Group, revealed on June 21 that he hopes that 10-bit quantum computers can be on the road in 2025, and is ready to open 10-bit quantum computing power to the outside world through the cloud, and comprehensively develop into four major fields such as "quantum computing", "quantum communication", "quantum sensing" and "quantum simulation". Finally, Liu Yangwei said that it is too early to talk about the commercial application of quantum technology, and it requires the joint efforts of all relevant industries.

Comments: Not long ago, Intel released Tunnel Falls, a quantum chip containing 12 silicon spin qubits. The emergence of quantum computing has made it possible for classical computer computing power to leap. IDC predicts that the global quantum computing market will reach $10.7 billion by 2027, an increase of more than 40 times in 10 years. Boston Consulting Group predicts that without considering the progress of quantum error correction algorithms, it is conservatively estimated that the global quantum computing application market will reach nearly $2 billion by 2035.

SunwayHome received hundreds of millions of yuan in Series D financing

On June 19, Sunwayhome, a cloud industrial software company, completed the D round of financing of hundreds of millions of yuan, with investors Guoke Investment and Huichuan Technology, with a post-investment valuation of nearly 600 million US dollars. This round of financing funds will be mainly used to accelerate the iterative upgrading of SunwayHome's products, and increase R&D investment in AI and artificial intelligence technologies to strengthen SunwayHome's industry position in the fields of home decoration design, marketing, and production software.

Comments: The market size of China's home industry software market is expected to exceed 100 billion in the next ten years. SunwayHome's D round integration will help it further develop its three self-developed core engines: cloud modeling, cloud rendering, and 3D vector AI.

Midea Welling signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Xpeng Motors

On June 20, the signing ceremony of the strategic cooperation framework agreement between Welling Auto Parts and Xpeng Motors, a subsidiary of Midea Industrial Technology, was held in Foshan. The two parties will continue to deepen cooperation and research and development on thermal management products and technologies for new energy vehicles such as electric compressors, and jointly build a win-win and sustainable strategic partnership.

Comments: New energy vehicle parts are a new growth point for Midea Group. Midea Welling Automotive Parts has laid out three incremental components for new energy vehicles: thermal management, electric drive and chassis actuation system, its Hefei plant has been put into operation in 2021, and the first phase of its Anqing new energy vehicle parts strategic base has also been put into operation in early 2023, which is the right time to expand new energy vehicle customers.

Venture capital vane

Tianyan inspection data shows that the total number of investment and financing events this week (6.19-6.23) was 59, down 39.2% from last week.

From the perspective of the industry distribution of financing events, there were 16, 7 and 4 AI-related events in manufacturing, medical and health care, and artificial intelligence, respectively. From the perspective of the distribution of financing events, early investment is the mainstay, with 17, 13 and 10 Series A, 13 and B rounds respectively.

Among them, in the field of artificial intelligence, Qingqian Intelligence, a provider of AI model deployment optimization technology, completed an angel round of financing of tens of millions of yuan, which was exclusively led by Oasis Capital. The company is committed to the research and development of MLGuider - hardware-aware automatic model deployment optimization platform to solve the difficult landing problem of complex AI models in AIGC, autonomous driving, AIoT and other fields. Previously, it completed a seed round of financing from Qiji Chuangtan.

In addition, AIGC distributed computing power network platform Duanbrain Technology recently announced the completion of a 5 million yuan seed round of financing, and the investor is Fengrui Capital. Previously, Chen Shi, investment partner of Fengrui Capital, said that in this round of AI technology change, the versatility of technology is better, the applicable scenarios are relatively broad, and the output value will be relatively large.