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Where is Jack Ma's 100 billion artificial intelligence dream of the Damo Academy?
In April 2017, Ma Yun made a bold statement in Yunqi Town, Hangzhou, that he would spend 100 billion yuan in the next three years to promote Alibaba's layout in the field of artificial intelligence. As one of the largest Internet companies in China, Alibaba's determination has undoubtedly aroused great attention in the industry. The core institution responsible for the implementation of this huge investment plan is the "Damo Academy" established by Alibaba Group that year.
Now that it has been more than seven years since Ma Yun Xu issued the "100 billion military order" to the Moyuan Academy, how is the progress of this blueprint for the development of artificial intelligence? As the highest temple of Ali's artificial intelligence career, what specific achievements has the Damo Academy made? This article intends to conduct an in-depth analysis of these issues.
Jack Ma's 100 billion commitment progresses
In 2017, Ma Yun vowed at the Yunqi Conference that he would invest 100 billion yuan in the research and development of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, and quantum computing in the next three years. Among them, the Damo Academy will be established as Ali's "aircraft carrier-level" institution in this field.
According to the latest financial report data, as of the end of the year, Ali's cumulative investment in R&D has exceeded 70 billion yuan. Although it did not fully fulfill the promise of 100 billion yuan that year, it still continued to maintain a high level of investment.
Among them, Alibaba's expenditure in the field of research and development in the past year has reached more than 16 billion yuan, mainly used to support the scientific research activities of the Damo Academy. It can be said that the Damo Academy is the core position of Ali's artificial intelligence development.
达摩院的投资重点及代表性成果
As Alibaba's flagship institution in the field of artificial intelligence, the DAMO Academy has a wide range of research scopes, including basic theories and multiple application scenarios. According to public information, the main investment directions of the Damo Academy are:
Machine intelligence
Machine intelligence is the core R&D direction of the DAMO Academy, focusing on basic artificial intelligence technologies such as computer vision and natural language processing. At present, its visual recognition, voice interaction and other products have been widely used in the Alibaba ecosystem.
Autonomous driving
Autonomous driving is a key investment area of the DAMO Academy. After years of development, its self-developed L4 autonomous driving system has been opened for manned road tests in some cities in 2022.
Quantum computing
The quantum field is the frontier direction of the Damo Academy, which is committed to exploring the application prospects of quantum technology in artificial intelligence, cloud computing and other fields. In 2021, the quantum computing principle verification system "Yuanyuan" developed by it was officially launched.
4) Robots
Damo Academy vigorously deploys robot technology in logistics, service and other scenarios. Its latest "Snow Mastiff" intelligent logistics robot has been put into large-scale use in Ali's logistics system.
Analysis of the development status of the Damo Academy
After 7 years of continuous investment, Alibaba has made some achievements in the field of artificial intelligence. However, compared with giants in the same industry, there is still a certain gap in the strength and innovation ability of DAMO Academy.
Strength comparison
Taking basic artificial intelligence technologies such as machine vision and speech recognition as examples, the strongest players in the industry are currently recognized as American technology giants such as Google and OpenAI, whose technical generality capabilities and innovation strength are far ahead.
In contrast, although Ali's application level in specific scenarios is good, it is still difficult to compete with top competitors in terms of underlying technological innovation capabilities. Especially in the field of general artificial intelligence, the research results of the Damo Academy are still lackluster.
Development bottlenecks
Whether the Damo Academy can achieve new breakthroughs depends to a large extent on Alibaba's investment ability in computing resources, talent reserves, and scenario applications.
The first is computing resources. Artificial intelligence model training requires a huge amount of computing power, which is a common problem in the industry. In contrast, there is still a gap between Ali's strength in computing power and its peers. In the future, it is necessary to increase investment in infrastructure such as hardware and chips.
The second is the talent pool. At present, the world's top AI talents are still concentrated in developed countries such as the United States, and domestic technology companies, including Alibaba, have limited talent pools. How to attract and cultivate top AI talent is the key to achieving innovative breakthroughs.
Finally, there are the application scenarios. Artificial intelligence technology is only valuable when it serves practical scenarios, which is one of the advantages of the Damo Academy. At present, Alibaba has accumulated massive data and rich scenarios in cloud computing, e-commerce logistics, digital finance and other fields, as long as it can be fully utilized, there will be excellent opportunities for technology implementation.
Prospects and prospects
In recent years, with the continuous breakthrough of artificial intelligence theory and computing power, the industry will usher in a new round of artificial intelligence wave and track competition. As one of the leading companies in the industry, whether Ali can take advantage of the situation to break through depends largely on the continuous investment in the Damo Academy.
First of all, the capital investment must be sufficient. Ma Yun's original promise of 100 billion is not a lie, but Ali needs to continue to fulfill it at this stage. Competing with the American giants, a financial war is certainly inevitable.
Secondly, we must fully tap our own advantages. Alibaba's large amount of data resources and practical experience accumulated in core scenarios such as cloud computing and e-commerce logistics are its advantages over other technology companies. The DAMO Academy should make full use of these resources to promote the efficient combination of artificial intelligence algorithms and practical applications.
Thirdly, the talent pool is constantly consolidated. Innovation in the field of artificial intelligence mainly relies on the foresight, insight and technological breakthrough of a few leading talents. Alibaba must continue to increase investment in the introduction and cultivation of high-end talents.
Finally, the autonomy and controllability of computing power resources. At present, although Ali's computing power is not as good as that of American giants such as Google, it is on the right track of development. In the future, it is necessary to increase investment in infrastructure such as independent and controllable supercomputing and chip research and development, so as to create hardware conditions for broader technological innovation.
In short, artificial intelligence represents the direction of a new round of scientific and technological revolution. Whether Ali can take advantage of this technological race depends largely on the continuous and vigorous investment in the Damo Academy, the "engine" of artificial intelligence development. Although the progress of the 100 billion plan that Ma Yun proudly announced back then was slow, the essence of the spirit has become Ali's layout of artificial intelligence
... The guiding ideology. As long as we make unremitting efforts to invest in development and break through key bottlenecks, Ali will definitely be able to get a share of the increasingly white-hot wave of artificial intelligence.
As the flagship of Ali's artificial intelligence personally operated by Jack Ma, the Damo Academy is shouldered with the important task of promoting the industrialization of artificial intelligence technology and realizing commercial value. Judging from the existing progress, although there is still a certain gap with its peers, important breakthroughs have been made in many fields, such as autonomous driving road tests, intelligent logistics robots put into use, etc., which are a strong embodiment of Ali's layout of artificial intelligence and promotion of actual industrial upgrading.
In the future, the DAMO Academy will continue to be the core force of Ali's artificial intelligence development. Alibaba needs to continue to increase investment in computing power, talents, infrastructure, etc., continue to break through key technical bottlenecks, and give full play to its advantages in scenario applications, so as to truly realize the benign interaction between technological innovation and commercial applications, and make greater breakthroughs in the artificial intelligence track.
Jack Ma has vowed to spend huge sums of money to support artificial intelligence, and now it seems that this strategic positioning is accurate. The wave of artificial intelligence is in the ascendant, and if Ali can persistently invest in the development of the Damo Academy, it will surely bear fruitful results and realize Jack Ma's dream of artificial intelligence.