Today's AI startup boom is like the gold rush in the United States in the mid-19th century. The big names have invested heavily in the race for big models, and the threshold for start-ups to invest in this field has soared from $50 million to $100 million today. Bigwigs from all walks of life are "flocking to it", and the "100 model war" is full of gunsmoke. However, in this wave, there is such a company that stands out with its unique perspective and strategy. As early as 2018, they made a forward-looking layout of the AI data storage track and provided high-performance data storage solutions for many well-known AI companies in China.
Zhang Wentao, with a master's degree in computer science from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, has been deeply engaged in the field of storage since graduation, and has been engaged in related technology research and development work in domestic and foreign giants such as IBM and Kingsoft Cloud, and has successfully participated in the landing and research and development of a number of cloud storage products from 0 to 1. During this period, he also met a group of entrepreneurial partners with dreams and passions. It is this group of like-minded and complementary elites who jointly founded Yanrong Technology in 2016 and jointly started a new entrepreneurial journey.
Whether it is an elite of a large factory or the CTO of a start-up company, Zhang Wentao has always been deeply involved in the field of storage. He has witnessed the whole picture and evolution of storage technology, and the concept of storage that is relatively vague for most people has a clear evolution in Zhang Wentao's eyes. From the early days of single-unit storage with simple inserts on PCs or servers, to the rise of centralized storage 20 years ago, to the trend of distributed storage led by Google's "GFS" paper, and the rise of "high-performance storage for small files" in the CV scenario in recent years, to the high-performance storage innovation brought about by the popularization of NVMe SSDs and the decline in SSD prices...... Zhang Wentao has always been able to tell these stories and stories, and his professional knowledge and deep love are obvious.
Since the beginning of the company's establishment, Yanrong Technology has been deeply engaged in the field of software-defined storage, keeping up with the pace of the times, and taking forward-looking strategic layout and profound technology accumulation as the cornerstone. The company has carried out comprehensive and in-depth planning and layout from multiple dimensions such as business direction, storage media, network media and intermediate supporting framework. At the same time, Yanrong Technology keenly captures the core needs of customers, develops and launches diversified functions and features based on the storage base at different times and stages, and continuously promotes the continuous progress and development of the storage field and creates more value for customers.
Relying on Yanrong Technology's deep genes in the field of file storage products, the company has successfully focused its advantages on scenarios such as AI and high-performance computing. In less than a decade, Yanrong Technology has accumulated rich customer resources and practical experience in AI fields such as gene sequencing, autonomous driving, and quantitative analysis. These successful cases not only provide valuable reference solutions for related fields, but also make Yanrong Technology a technology pioneer focusing on AI storage in China, leading the development direction of the industry.
Yanrong Technology's continuous technological innovation is the secret of its leading storage market, which not only stems from the company's internal R&D strength, but also benefits from close cooperation and co-creation with customers. In Mr. Wentao's view, many of Yanrong's competitive functions and solutions are co-created and built together with customers. It is this combination of internal and external and mutually reinforcing mode that enables Yanrong Technology to maintain its leading position and continue to move towards new heights.
In 2019, Yanrong Technology, together with well-known domestic AI voice training companies, hit the global IO500 performance test and entered the top six in the world. In today's increasingly popular all-flash storage technology, although its price has been adjusted, the overall cost is still high for customers, so Yanrong Technology has successfully helped customers significantly reduce the cost of the entire infrastructure with its unique technical solutions, bringing tangible benefits to customers.
Let's take the cooperation between Yanrong Technology and a leading autonomous driving company as an example. As a leader in the field of autonomous driving, the company continues to lead industry innovation with advanced development concepts and strong multi-cloud data solution capabilities. However, during AI training, they faced the problem of data being transferred from object storage to file storage after purchasing datasets from a third party. In view of the characteristics of this unique scenario, Yanrong Technology works closely with customers to jointly research and develop a set of efficient and smooth solutions. Through technological innovation and in-depth cooperation, this data flow process can be automated without human intervention, which greatly improves work efficiency and data processing accuracy.
On the premise of in-depth understanding of customer scenarios and needs, Yanrong Technology has cooperated to create a series of other groundbreaking business solutions. It has truly achieved a win-win situation of "not only leading the market, but also growing together with customers".
In the wisdom of survival in the general environment, Wentao understands that it is focused, practicing internal skills, and co-creating with customers.
Focus on the main business "Sometimes doing more is not necessarily right, and doing less is not necessarily wrong." The more critical it is, the more we have to think about what we want to do...... This is especially important for startups with limited resources. Wen Tao's remarks originated from the detours that Yanrong Technology had taken in business exploration in the past, which is undoubtedly the inevitable "growth pain" of many startups. However, the key is whether we can quickly recognize our mistakes, decisively adjust our strategies, and refocus on our core business to reduce unnecessary trial and error costs and achieve more efficient development.
The more difficult the environment is to practice internal strength, the more we should seize the opportunity to practice internal strength, which is another profound consensus reached by President Wen Tao and me. At present, in the face of an unfavorable environment, many enterprises often only take emergency measures such as layoffs and salary cuts, but ignore the crucial work of "cultivating internal strength". Looking back at the SARS era, many travel platforms chose to shrink their business, but Ctrip has a unique vision and firmly believes that the tourism industry will usher in a recovery after the epidemic. Therefore, they took the opportunity to strengthen internal management and staff training, and worked hard to improve their internal skills. Sure enough, with the end of SARS and the rapid rebound of the tourism industry, Ctrip, which was well prepared, took on a large amount of business and became a leader in the industry. This fully proves that cultivating internal strength in adversity can not only enhance the enterprise's ability to resist risks, but also lay a solid foundation for future development.
Co-creation with customers, Wentao and Yanrong Technology have a deep personal experience in this. In this special period, enterprises should put themselves in the shoes of customers, be anxious about their needs, pay close attention to their needs, and create in-depth co-creation with them. Just as Kazuo Inamori founded Kyocera, he spent his days thinking about how to better serve his customers, and he was willing to do things that customers didn't want to think about. This in-depth understanding of customers and empathetic attitude enables enterprises to launch products and services that truly meet the needs of users. Even if customers are currently constrained by various conditions, when the environment improves, they will always be willing to pay for products and services that are truly built with care in mind.
In the era of the vigorous development of AI, there is no absolute distinction between "gold diggers" and "shovel sellers", they are all brave trendsetters in the AI wave, relying on their own expertise and talents to adapt to the new era, serve the new era, and lead the new era. As science fiction writer William Gibson put it, "The future is here, but it's not evenly distributed." "Thanks to Yanrong Technology and all the pioneers in the field of AI, it is thanks to them that we can see the future earlier.