Written by | Lee Shin Ma
Title Picture | WAIC
This is the first impression of DoNews at this year's WAIC conference. At the entrance of the World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center, a dense crowd lined up in a long line, waiting to enter despite the scorching sun.
Since its first event in 2018, WAIC has become a global event in the field of artificial intelligence. With the continuous development and growth of the artificial intelligence industry, the influence of the WAIC conference is also increasing, and it has become the vane of the development of the artificial intelligence industry.
Each year, the theme and agenda of the conference reflect the key trends in the development of artificial intelligence at that time, which can also be seen from the themes of the WAIC conferences in previous years:
2018 "A New Era of Artificial Intelligence Empowerment"
2019 "Smart Connected World, Infinite Possibilities"
2020 "Smart World, Common Home"
2021 "Smart World, Wisdom as a City"
2022 "Intelligent Connected World, Metaverse Unbounded"
2023 "Connecting the World, Shaping the Future"
Premier Li Qiang attended the opening ceremony of the conference and delivered a speech, saying that "China has always actively embraced intelligent transformation, vigorously promoted the innovation and development of artificial intelligence, attached great importance to artificial intelligence security governance, and implemented a series of pragmatic measures to actively explore and contribute constructive ideas and solutions to global artificial intelligence development and governance."
This year's conference focuses on the three major sectors of core technology, intelligent terminals, and application empowerment, focusing on key areas such as large models, computing power, robots, and autonomous driving, focusing on displaying a number of latest achievements in "artificial intelligence +" innovative applications, and launching a batch of high-profile innovative products.
It is understood that more than 500 companies participated in the conference, and the number of exhibits exceeded 1,500. As an invited media, DoNews has also summarized the highlights of the WAIC conference from the first day of visiting the World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center to participating in key forums for readers.
01.
The treasure of the town
At the scene, the most eye-catching thing is the "Eighteen Arhats" composed of humanoid robots. Humanoid robots from different tech companies lined up in two rows to form a pioneer array to welcome the audience.
Image source: DoNews
Every year, the WAIC conference will officially announce a list of "treasures of the town", which is the highest honor of the conference exhibition, and the selection dimensions include scientific and technological content, market prospects, innovation and social and economic benefits, etc., and the number of selected items does not exceed 10. Among the eight treasures selected this year, the first is the humanoid robot array.
Image source: WAIC
Among them, the full-size open source public version of the national and local humanoid robot innovation center developed - "Qinglong" as the array leader made its debut at this conference, and other robots were from Mindmind, Fudan University, Fourier, Hangzhou Yushu Technology, Kepler, Qingbao Robot, Shenzhen Leju, Songyan Power, Titanium Tiger, Wuxi Cancer, Xingdong Era, Zhiyuan, CETC Robot, Zhuoyide and other 14 companies, through the decoupling of software and hardware, the robot can complete a unified action.
There are 42 intelligent robots in the entire intelligent terminal exhibition area, including 22 humanoid robots, in addition to a number of domestic robot manufacturers, in Tesla's booth, the second generation of humanoid robots Optimus was also unveiled, attracting many people to take pictures.
When you're tired of visiting the exhibition, how about a cup of coffee? At Ant Group's booth, the "Alipay Smart Assistant" was operating a robotic arm to pour coffee for the audience.
This is the first blockbuster exhibit of Alipay, a subsidiary of Ant Group, at this exhibition, and it is also one of the "treasures of the town", based on Ant's self-developed Bailing model, and is committed to becoming an AI life steward that everyone can use. Just say "order me a hot Americano" to the assistant, and the robot will operate the order and deliver a steaming cup of coffee on the spot. In addition, it can also help users provide services such as running errands, consulting consultations, and taking taxis.
Beauty lovers, you can come and see SenseTime's booth, a photo, you can generate a beautiful video. This is SenseTime's "Vimi controllable character video generation model", which can drive character images through action videos or animations, so as to generate character videos that are consistent with the target action.
As another "treasure of the town", at present, Vimi can stably generate a minute-long single-shot character video, and can not only control the character's expression, but also control the body movements, and generate changes in hair, clothing, background, light and shadow.
In addition to the above-mentioned companies, the "treasures of the town" of this conference also include the Tongyi Lingcode produced by Alibaba Cloud, which won the highest level in the first round of evaluation of the trusted AI code large model of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, Lenovo Group's full-size dual-screen laptop "YOGA Book 9i AI Yuanqi", Tesla Cyber off-road station wagon, and the pedestal model of Zhipu AI.
02.
Great V Golden Phrase
In addition to a large number of wonderful exhibits, the collision of ideas is also an important attraction of previous WAIC conferences. At the plenary session, experts and scholars faced the global agenda of AI governance, focusing on development, security, and governance, and carried out a series of international, cross-field, and multi-perspective in-depth discussions.
In the sub-forums and enterprise sessions, the speakers also provided valuable views and enlightenment for the development and governance of global artificial intelligence. We have compiled some of the wonderful speeches of scholars and entrepreneurs for readers to learn and reference.
Xue Lan
Dean of Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University
Dean of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence International Governance, Tsinghua University
"At the moment, AI may pose some risks. First, there are problems inherent in technology, including so-called illusions, and autonomous AI systems that may pose a threat to human society in the long run. Second, risks brought about by technological development, including data security issues, algorithmic discrimination, energy and environmental issues, etc.; Third, the use of technology, including misuse or abuse, has a long-term impact on social employment. ”
Bowen Zhou
Director and Chief Scientist of Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Hui Yan Chair Professor, Tsinghua University
"Overall, the improvement in AI model security is still far behind the performance, and this imbalance leads to an uneven development of AI, behind which is a huge difference in investment between the two. In terms of whether the two are systematic, talent-intensive, and business-driven, including the investment in computing power, the investment in security is far behind the investment in AI, and only 1% of the world is aligned (security and performance) or security is prioritized. ”
Yao Chi-zhi
Turing Award winner and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
"There have been existential risks, existential risks, and when the train or the steam engine was invented, there were people who had such concerns. There have been concerns about the nuclear threat recently, and this is very reasonable. This time, a new powerful technology has emerged that is changing the world, and this time the disruptive force may be more threatening than the nuclear threat. All of these risks need to be addressed by a lot of experts, not just scientists, but also governments, lawyers, economists, and almost every industry. ”
Li Yanhong
Founder, Chairman and CEO of Baidu
"Open source large models have value in specific scenarios such as academic research and teaching, but they are not suitable for most application scenarios. In a fiercely competitive environment, when it is necessary to make business efficiency higher and cost lower than peers, the commercial closed-source model is the most effective. ”
Wang Jian
Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Director of Zhijiang Laboratory, Founder of Alibaba Cloud
"As long as it's a new technology, there will always be new big companies. If a new technology comes out and no new big companies appear, then whether it is a disruptive technology is a question mark. But I myself believe that in this era, there will be new big companies coming out, just like GE back then, this is the first logic, look at this matter. But at the same time, it is very interesting that there will be large companies that will be reborn from the flames. ”
Jing Xiandong
Chairman and CEO of Ant Group
"In the era of artificial intelligence, we are also exploring ways to make AI as convenient for everyone's life as scanning QR code payment, so that the dividends of AI technology development can benefit more people."
Xu Li
Chairman and CEO of SenseTime
"If we are to drive the AI super-moment, we need large models that can demonstrate excellent deep thinking capabilities. Synthetic artificial data, especially high-order thinking data, is often very important. Therefore, the more application scenarios, the better the core of high-quality data can be formed. ”
03.
Blockbuster release
As a technology life with global influence, WAIC has also become the first choice for important awards and blockbuster announcements by many technology companies, and DoNews has compiled some of the release information.
The SAIL Awards (Excellence in Artificial Intelligence Leaders Award) were announced
On July 4, as the highest award of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, the SAIL Award (Excellence in Artificial Intelligence Leader Award) was announced, which was awarded to:
Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Lab - DeepLink Artificial Intelligence Open Computing System
China Southern Power Grid Co., Ltd.-New Power System Intelligent Simulator "Yudian"
Moqi Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. - MyScale AI database
Schneider Electric (China) Co., Ltd. - EcoStruxure AI engine for energy management and industrial automation
Lu Zhi's paper on Tsinghua University, "Virtual Scanning Light Field Microscope Achieves Robust 3D Imaging with High Spatiotemporal Resolution"
2024 SAIL之星颁发给:
Shanghai Step Star Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. - Step Step series general large model
Shanghai Lingshu Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. > Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry (Group) Co., Ltd. - ETO manufacturing and delivery agent based on Shushengpu language
Shanghai Moda Technology Co., Ltd. - ModelScope - Model-as-a-Service open source platform and application
China Mobile Internet Co., Ltd., China Mobile Shanghai Co., Ltd., China Mobile Communications Co., Ltd. Research Institute - 5G A² (5G-A×AI) intelligent communication solutions
Siemens (China) Co., Ltd. - Siemens Industrial Copilot
Tsinghua University-vision-centric high-level autonomous driving platform
SenseTime Releases "Every Day New 5O"
In April this year, SenseTime released the "Ririxin 5.0", which was the first domestic large-scale model to benchmark GPT-4 Turbo in China. On July 5, SenseTime released the "Ririxin 5o", which is an interactive experience that benchmarks GPT-4o and stems from the comprehensive improvement of the capabilities of the "Ririxin 5.5" basic model. It is understood that the comprehensive performance of "Ririxin 5.5" is improved by an average of 30% compared with "Rixin 5.0", and the ability of mathematical reasoning, English ability and instruction following is significantly enhanced, and the interactive effect and a number of core indicators are benchmarked against GPT-4o.
Ant Group released a large-scale model cryptographic platform
On July 5, Ant Group released the "Hidden Cloud" large-model cryptographic computing platform, which realizes the dense flow of data in large-scale model hosting and large-model inference through the combination of software and hardware trusted privacy computing technology, and protects model assets, data security, and user privacy.
At the press conference, Wang Lei, CEO of Ant Secret Computing, introduced that the first batch of two major services of the "Hidden Cloud" large model secret computing platform were launched, namely large model secret state hosting and large model dense state inference. Encrypted hosting of large models means that the model provider can encrypt the model and host it on the platform, and complete the dense deployment on the cloud with one click, protecting the model assets from leakage and theft. Large-model dense inference refers to the completion of inference in the form of data in a dense state to protect data security and trade secrets when users interact.
In addition, the platform supports GPUs to perform calculations in a trusted execution environment, so that the response time and usage efficiency of large model inference in the dense form are close to those of plaintext large models, and large-scale commercial availability is realized.
Alibaba Cloud Shadowless launches AI assistant "Xiaoying"
On July 5, Alibaba Cloud Shadowless Cloud Computer announced the launch of the first cloud-native large-scale model AI assistant - "Xiaoying".
This is a cloud-native Copilot based on the deep combination of user demand insight and cloud large model, which is designed for learning, office and other scenarios on cloud computers, which not only provides desktop-level large model capabilities, but also realizes automatic learning of task flow and enterprise knowledge base decision-making.