Bahrain came to China

Image source: Visual China

Economic Observer reporter Wang Yajie "After ChatGPT was born, the next era is the era of artificial intelligence."

Aiming at artificial intelligence, Ai Yu, founder and CEO of Terminus Technology Group, began to lead the team to attack the AIoT (Artificial Intelligence Internet of Things) track.

On October 25, 2023, his company welcomed a new group of guests - relevant government officials and business people from the Kingdom of Bahrain (referred to as Bahrain, an island country located in the southwest of the Persian Gulf, between Qatar and Saudi Arabia). Bahrain and Terminus United talked behind closed doors, and did not disclose the detailed cooperation discussions and project implementation content of the day.

On the evening of October 26, a relevant person from Terminus told the Economic Observer: "This is the first time that the two sides have met, and during the talks, the two sides exchanged views on new digital infrastructure, high-end manufacturing, and the flow and training of scientific and technological talents, and conducted close and in-depth discussions on the implementation and application of the project." ”

On October 25, a government official from the Kingdom of Bahrain also told the Economic Observer: "We want to carry out an information and communication technology revolution in Bahrain, which is the goal of the country's leaders. ”

change

The Middle East capital group has come to China again.

On October 25, during the China-GCC "6+1" Economic and Trade Ministers' Meeting, the Minister of Industry and Commerce of the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Bahrain to China, the Head of Business Development of the Bahrain Economic Development Commission, the Bahrain Sovereign Fund, the Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry and business people came to Terminus to discuss the possibility of future cooperation in the field of smart investment, economic and trade cooperation.

According to public information, on July 6, 2023, the Kingdom of Bahrain also held the third Bahrain International Data Science Conference online, saying that it will invest in modern technology and artificial intelligence applications, and Bahrain is trying to keep up with the pace of rapid development of the world and strive to become a pioneer in artificial intelligence and its application fields in the region. At the same time, the legislature will formulate laws and regulations so that the legislative system can keep pace with the development and progress of science and technology.

The meeting was attended not only by representatives of universities and institutions from Spain and the United Kingdom, but also by representatives from China.

In the past three months, government officials from Middle Eastern countries have led industrial and commercial entrepreneurs and sovereign wealth funds to visit Chinese technology companies intensively, appearing in Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chongqing and other cities, as well as appearing in the headquarters offices of Chinese technology companies such as Terminus and NIO.

In the past three months, Terminus, China's leading AIoT company, has received government officials, sovereign wealth funds, and business people from Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

Since 2018, when we discussed the development path of artificial intelligence with Shenzhen officials, this is another attempt to reform the Kingdom of Bahrain after focusing on artificial intelligence, and it is also a new opportunity for Terminus.

On October 25, a government official from the Kingdom of Bahrain told the Economic Observer: "We want to carry out an information and communication technology revolution in Bahrain, which is the goal of the country's leaders. We already have well-established industry regulations, which opens the beginning of the ecosystem. We have fintech mechanisms, but we need scale, we need technology. ”

Ai Yu believes that the entire Middle East market will also be an important market for relevant Chinese technology companies. He also smelled the urgent market demand for technological transformation in the Middle East, especially the change of cutting-edge technology, and the Middle East countries are highly concerned, and they believe that in the next step, the Internet and mobile Internet will change all walks of life in the world.

At the scene, the Kingdom of Bahrain put forward a demand, that is, it hopes that Terminus will train local young people in Bahrain, because artificial intelligence is a luxury, and not every enterprise can directly use artificial intelligence.

"Training is like turning a horse-drawn carriage into a car, and from that point of view, I think there is a huge market demand in Bahrain for this area," Ai Yu said. ”

For a long time, the Middle East consisted of 24 countries and regions, covering an area of more than 15 million square kilometers and about 490 million people. Among them, the six Gulf countries, consisting of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain, have the most potential to go to sea. Wealthy Middle Eastern countries are eager to develop a new economy: a large proportion of traditional oil industries, high network penetration, large youth groups, and strong digital ambitions. China, with its strong manufacturing and technological innovation capabilities, is the best choice for Bahrain to develop artificial intelligence.

Opportunity

Exploring cooperation with the Kingdom of Bahrain is not a "crab" move of Terminus, and in the past three years, it has cooperated with more than one Middle Eastern company.

The turning point came at the World Expo 2020.

Ai Yu was "particularly impressed" by this. "When I was at the World Expo in 2020, we were competing with companies like Siemens, and our competitor in robotics was Boston Dynamics," he said. ”

The Opti mascot robot behind Termus attracted the attention of the industry, and at that time, Pixar was a 2D animated mascot made for the World Expo, and the World Expo asked if it could be made into a 3D robot, but Ai Yu just said "let's give it a try". In the end, Terminus completed the design in three months, changing it from flat to three-dimensional, realizing multiple functions and proofing in the Chinese factory.

The UAE ambassador made a special trip to Terminus to have a look, and then went to visit the relevant leaders of Shanghai with the Chinese company Terminus to discuss the experience of the China World Expo.

In Ai Yu's view, this cooperation with Bahrain is "similar to the idea that we are developing in other countries in the Middle East today, including the cooperation between the two sides at the technology and product level, such as Terminus's robots, AIoT products, digital energy products based on smart city solutions, etc."

Now, Ai Yu feels that Terminus is "following the trend". He said: "If you can be the largest company in China, you must be the largest company abroad, and Terminus has been the top company in the field of AIoT in China in the past few years. I think that if Chinese artificial intelligence enterprises want to succeed, they must first succeed in China, and then they may succeed in the world. ”

anticipate

In Ai Yu's view, in the future, Bahrain will become the "bridgehead" of Tess United.

He finds it interesting that Bahrain is a GCC country (the Gulf Cooperation Council for the Gulf Arab States Cooperation Council, which is composed of seven countries: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Sultanate of Oman, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and Yemen), and two countries, Bahrain and Jordan, and Europe and the United States.

Based on this, the Kingdom of Bahrain itself is a good "bridgehead", and Terminus can use it as a fulcrum in the Middle East to stimulate the cooperation and development of other countries around the world.

At the capital level, Ai Yu revealed that "some cooperation will also be considered in the future". As early as 7 years ago, he went to Bahrain for an inspection, and raised $500 million at that time, and then invested in Meituan Dianping, JD Logistics, Xiaopeng Motors, NIO, etc.

Ai Yu said that whether it is robots, IoT products, or AI algorithms, overseas will be an important development direction for Terminus.

He said: "Our overseas development may be a bit like the relationship between Douyin and Tiktok, and the two markets are moving forward at the same time. We currently have offices in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, UAE, a large team covering the entire Middle East, and we also have an office subsidiary in Australia, which is very large. ”

Ai Yu revealed that in the next step, Terminus will soon establish an office in Singapore, and the initial layout is to enter the "Belt and Road" related countries first, and then consider the European and American markets. Through countries like Bahrain, we will open up the high-end products and high-end line market of Terminus.

Ai Yu reminded that although the prospects are very broad, the market competition in the Gulf countries is also relatively fierce, and if Chinese enterprises want to truly achieve success in going overseas, it is difficult to achieve success just by copying the domestic things and simply localizing them.

"After all, the introduction is for better output, and all countries want to better support their own industries, so we still need to pay more attention to the local business culture, and constantly balance business profits and culture, which is an art. As a simple example, some countries require external investors to have 10%-20% local employees after setting up a company locally, and it must involve high-tech positions. Ai Yu said.

In addition, in Ai Yu's view, the unique local advantages of local enterprises are also another competitive difficulty for foreign-funded enterprises to overcome. "Because the opponents in the bidding stage may be local giants, who are backed by sovereign wealth funds and have a better understanding of local customer habits and needs, and most of the large AI-related projects will be preferred by local companies. If you want to win the bid in such an environment, it will be a great test of the company's ability to do business, and you should pay attention to thinking about what kind of way to achieve a win-win situation. This method is not limited to establishing joint ventures with local giants, or starting with projects, but also considering going overseas in groups, integrating ecological partners to form a complete service and implementation capabilities, and making up for the missing parts of the project, which may also be a better way. ”