With United States' manufacturing on the verge of collapse, what is maintaining "imperial face"?
1. AI "saves" United States manufacturing
In the early morning of September 10, the 2024 Apple Autumn New Product Launch Conference arrived as scheduled, and the new iPhone16 series was released.
Although from the perspective of performance, the improvement of mobile phone SoCs, lenses, and screens is close to the end of the marginal utility curve, Apple still finds a revolutionary innovation point - AI.
This is not only a breakthrough as a company, but also the most important technological exploration in a country, especially in the current United States.
In the early 50s of the 20th century, the added value of manufacturing in United States accounted for about 28% of GDP, and only 11% will be left in 2021; In 1990, the added value of United States' manufacturing industry accounted for 22% of the global manufacturing added value, which will drop to 17% in 2021; In 2022, the number of manufacturing jobs in the United States accounted for only 8% of total employment, which is at a record low.
However, in this case, United States' GDP in 2023 will be $27.36 trillion, which is still about 1.5 times that of China; In 2023, the per capita GDP of United States will be 81,700 US dollars, which is more than 6.4 times that of China; U.S. stocks have recently hit record highs one after another.
With its production capacity nearly exhausted, how can United States maintain a huge economy and a superior standard of living?
The answer is, with technology.
Through continuous technological innovation and R&D investment, United States has achieved world-leading achievements in information technology, aerospace, renewable energy and other fields.
The electronic computer and IBM in the 80s, the Internet and Google and Amazon in the 90s, and the new energy vehicles and Tesla in the new century are all examples of United States relying on scientific and technological innovation to drive economic development. Many of these fields have been chased and even surpassed by latecomers, but the emphasis on innovation has allowed the United States to once again gain a monopoly advantage in the most cutting-edge fields such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and space exploration.
Among them, AI is undoubtedly one of the most cutting-edge and promising fields of scientific and technological innovation, which is changing the way people live and work at an unprecedented speed and scale, and continues to give birth to emerging industries such as intelligent medical care, autonomous driving, and smart home, as well as a new lifestyle behind it, providing a solid foundation for the stable growth of the United States economy.
According to PwC, AI will drive United States GDP growth by $3.7 trillion by 2030, accounting for 14.5% of GDP and contributing $15.7 trillion to the global economy.
Similarly, in China, with the introduction of the concept of new qualitative productivity at the end of last year, economic development has entered a new stage, and scientific and technological innovation has become the core driving force for economic growth. As an important representative of scientific and technological innovation, AI will also be the most important topic for China's economic development in the future.
On August 24-25, 2024, Xu Wenqiang, Foreign Academician of the Russia Academy of Engineering, Ph.D. of the University of California, Berkeley, and Dean of the Prospective Industry Research Institute, was invited to attend the Baichuan Forum - the 3rd China Political Economy Theory and Practice "Industry and Modernization: China and the World" 2024 Symposium.
As a technology-based decision-making think tank that understands the industry better, Xu Wenqiang, President of the Prospective Industry Research Institute, delivered a speech on the theme of "New Era, New Power - Insight into Industrial Upgrading and Economic Growth from AI Development", and conducted a comprehensive and in-depth discussion on Chinese modernization from the dimension of human social development with experts, scholars and entrepreneurs from North America, Europe, Africa and Asia, and jointly discussed China's practice of modernization and world experience from the industrial level.
President Xu Wenqiang believes that industries with technological advantages have become the key force driving China's economic growth. As a model of the new era and new power, the high-level application of artificial intelligence has made data elements generate a lot of practical economic value.
He emphasized that AI is not only a technological revolution, but also a key force to promote the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure and reshape the global economic map.
2. The development of AI is the development of new quality productivity
China's AI development can be roughly divided into four stages. In August 2016, the State Council issued the "13th Five-Year Plan for National Science and Technology Innovation", which clearly regarded artificial intelligence as a major scientific and technological project reflecting the national strategic intent, which means that domestic AI has entered a period of rapid development.
The AI industry chain consists of three layers: the basic layer, the technology layer, and the application layer. Generally speaking, the current domestic AI industry has a comprehensive layout in all aspects.
Among them, the main participants include Alibaba Cloud, Huawei Cloud, Baidu, SenseTime, Megvii Technology, Tencent Cloud, iFLYTEK, Damo Academy, etc., laying out the entire industrial chain of artificial intelligence basic layer, technology layer, and application layer. In addition, AI application layer suppliers also include ByteDance, Kuaishou, Meituan, Taobao, DJI, etc.
With strong policy support and the expansion of market supply and demand, the market scale of the mainland artificial intelligence industry will continue to expand in the future.
According to the estimation of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the scale of the mainland's artificial intelligence industry will reach 1 trillion yuan by 2030, with a compound growth rate of about 8.83% from 2022 to 2030. According to this growth rate, in 2029, the scale of Chinese artificial intelligence market will reach 920 billion yuan.
However, whether it is for local governments, enterprises, and investors, if they want to devote themselves to AI, the biggest outlet in the era of new quality productivity, they need to understand a key issue:
How does AI empower the development of new quality productivity?
At the Baichuan Forum, President Xu Wenqiang focused on answering questions in this regard. He believes that the strong supporting role of AI in the development of new quality productivity is mainly reflected in three aspects:
(1) Unleash the value of data
Although human society has paid more and more attention to the value of data since the information age, data can only be used as a tool to serve human experience due to the ability to use it.
However, AI has undergone a revolutionary evolution in the use of data, both in terms of efficiency and scale, which makes data leap from a production tool to a means of production, and the data resources that have accumulated in human society for thousands of years at the bottom of economic activities will be released, creating a digital industry of trillions or even tens of trillions.
President Xu Wenqiang believes that AI will be the key to the digital transformation of China's economy. The high-level application of AI has made data truly a key variable in the production function, and further promoted the efficient allocation of production factors such as labor (L) and capital (K). As AI continues to evolve, the production curve will move upwards as a whole.
(2) Promote industrial upgrading
Dean Xu Wenqiang emphasized that AI can promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries from two aspects, and provide important support for accelerating the formation of new quality productivity.
The first is to efficiently explore the strengths and weaknesses of the existing industry, and provide customized improvement solutions for the industry through accurate analysis. Optimize production lines in the manufacturing industry to reduce waste and improve resource utilization; Forecasting demand in the logistics industry, optimizing inventory management, reducing transportation costs, etc.
The second is to help traditional industries achieve service-oriented expansion. Through AI's data analysis and pattern recognition capabilities, governments and enterprises can better understand external needs and provide personalized services. The application of AI has not only changed the way services are provided, but also promoted the development of traditional industries in the direction of service-oriented and intelligent, opening up a new path for the sustainable development of the industry.
(3) Feeding back basic science
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an important assistant in basic scientific research, which greatly expands the boundaries of human cognition through powerful data processing capabilities and pattern recognition technology, which not only accelerates the speed of scientific discovery, but also improves the accuracy and depth of research, and provides a new perspective for human understanding of complex phenomena in nature.
Looking to the future, with the continuous optimization of algorithms and the enhancement of computing power, AI will be able to perform more complex reasoning and predictions, providing deeper insights for scientific research, and perhaps even beyond some functions of the human brain, thus changing the paradigm of scientific research. This transformative potential indicates that AI will become an indispensable partner in future scientific research, pushing the boundaries of human knowledge to expand.
Dean Xu Wenqiang said that AI will give birth to and lead a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, and will become an important engine to accelerate the cultivation and development of new quality productivity. On the basis of the digital economy, through the integrated innovation of data, algorithms, and computing power, AI will provide inexhaustible power for new quality productivity.
So specifically, what are the current outlets worth paying attention to in the AI industry?
Obviously, although the development of the AI industry has made significant progress in recent years, it is still far from reaching a mature stage, and there are still many challenges and problems in many aspects of technology and application. These pain points not only limit the wide application of AI technology, but also put forward higher requirements for the healthy development of the AI industry.
Solving these pain points is the biggest industrial opportunity at the moment. Dean Xu Wenqiang believes that governments, enterprises and investors should pay close attention to these problems and overcome these challenges through technological innovation and business model innovation, so as to promote the healthy development of the AI industry.
As far as AI technology itself is concerned, the main pain points are as follows:
- High-quality data is scarce
Datasets are the foundation and source of AI "learning". From the perspective of the language of global open source datasets, English open source datasets account for the highest proportion, reaching 56.9%, while Chinese open source datasets account for only 5.6%, showing China's shortcomings in digital infrastructure construction, which is inconsistent with China's development strength and expectations in the field of artificial intelligence.
There are many reasons for the shortage of high-quality datasets in China, including the lack of data standards and norms, the low degree of data sharing and openness, and the insufficient investment in data processing. The shortage of datasets will limit the training effect of AI algorithms, affecting the accuracy and generalization ability of models.
Governments can promote the rational use of data resources by formulating policies on data sharing and privacy protection, establishing data trading platforms, and promoting the rational use of data resources. At the same time, we will increase investment in basic and applied AI research, encourage innovation, and solve data-related technical problems. Enterprises should strengthen cooperation with scientific research institutions to improve data collection and processing capabilities, while focusing on data security and compliance to ensure that user privacy is protected in AI applications. Through these measures, we can provide a solid data foundation for the development of the AI industry and promote the industry to a higher level.
-Smart chips are highly dependent on external sources
Although China has made some progress in the field of smart chips, there are still challenges in the perfection of the industrial chain, technological breakthroughs, intellectual property protection, international political environment and other aspects, which combine to cause China's smart chips to remain dependent on imports in the short term.
At present, many local chip technology reserves and ecological capabilities still revolve around the identification AI in the era of small models, which is difficult to match the software ecology, model framework, and performance requirements required for the development of large models and generative AI, so local AI chips still need to grow in development, inheritance and competition.
In the future, Chinese's artificial intelligent chip industry needs to further strengthen technology research and development and innovation, strengthen the construction of the ecosystem, cultivate more high-quality and high-tech talents, strengthen international cooperation and exchanges, improve independent research and development and innovation capabilities, and gradually reduce external dependence to promote the goal of sustainable development of the artificial intelligence chip industry.
- Insufficient supply of skilled workers
The development of the field of artificial intelligence is inseparable from the support of talents. At present, China has a shortage in talent training, and if it cannot fill the talent gap in time, the field of Chinese artificial intelligence cannot develop normally. According to the "2023 Artificial Intelligence Talent Insight Report" released by Maimai, in 2022, the talent supply and demand ratio of the artificial intelligence industry will be 0.63, and from January to August 2023, this ratio will drop to 0.39, which is equivalent to 5 positions competing for 2 talents.
The government can encourage universities and research institutions to strengthen the construction of AI-related disciplines and talent training by formulating preferential policies, and at the same time increase support for continuing education and vocational training for in-service personnel. Companies should partner with educational institutions to develop customized talent development programs, internships, and employment opportunities to attract and retain the best talent in the field of AI. In addition, enterprises can also attract top talents at home and abroad by establishing R&D centers and innovation labs, and promote the exchange and cooperation of AI technology.
In addition to the development of AI technology, the commercialization path of AI is not clear and mature, which is also a problem that needs to be considered in the current development of the industry. How to translate the capabilities of AI into stable and substantial income still needs to be explored and verified. Governments and enterprises need to find effective solutions to these problems in order to gain an advantage in the market competition.
At present, the most likely breakthrough point of AI industrialization is that it involves a large number of data application needs and has a relatively high-value service industry. Dean Xu Wenqiang explained "AI + e-commerce" and "AI + education" as typical cases.
"AI + education" is the deep integration and application of artificial intelligence in the field of education, which includes "computational intelligence + education", "perceptual intelligence + education" and "cognitive intelligence + education", from "being able to save and calculate" to "being able to listen, speak, see and recognize", and finally realize "being able to understand and think". The blessing of AI technology is expected to reduce the cost of education investment from the two dimensions of improving teaching personalization and teaching efficiency, and ultimately achieve the goal of promoting education equity, improving quality, and achieving personalized education.
"AI + e-commerce" empowers various types of e-commerce and industry modules with the help of AI large model related technologies, and implements the relevant applications of various AI large models, so as to generate impact value on the industry such as traffic logic, user experience, industry efficiency, enterprise costs, functional substitution, and market opportunities.
3. To choose the future is to choose the future
From the perspective of local industrial planning, the Prospective Industry Research Institute, as a technology-based decision-making think tank that understands the industry better, has established the "Artificial Intelligence Industrial Planning Institute", hoping to give full play to the exclusive characteristic industrial planning services of "industrial research + big data + technical insight + investment resource front-loading", and provide local governments with scientific, forward-looking, and more practical overall consulting solutions for industrial planning.
After studying the development model of the AI industry in many places in China, the Prospective Artificial Intelligence Industry Planning Institute believes that Shenzhen's layout in the AI industry is relatively comprehensive and scientific. The Action Plan for Accelerating the Construction of an Artificial Intelligence Pioneer City (hereinafter referred to as the "Action Plan") issued at the end of July includes 22 specific measures to build an "Artificial Intelligence Pioneer City" from 6 aspects, among which several points are worth noting:
-Wide range of layouts. The Action Plan proposes to build an artificial intelligence pioneer city from the perspectives of "full-stack innovation pioneer, intelligent product pioneer, data cross-border pioneer, scene application pioneer, and intelligent driving pioneer".
-The industrial chain is complete. From upstream computing power infrastructure construction, basic research and technological innovation, scientific research platform and industrial community building, to midstream hardware products, intelligent equipment R&D and manufacturing, to downstream AI applications in multiple fields, the Action Plan has all been laid out.
- Strong government guidance. The Shenzhen Municipal Government has played a strong guiding role in promoting the construction of "Pengcheng Cloud Brain III", Shenzhen Open Intelligent Computing Center, Shenzhen Smart City Computing Power Coordination and Scheduling Platform, and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Integrated Computing Service Platform, exploring the new model of "government overall construction and authorized data use", and implementing the support plan for artificial intelligence software demonstration and application projects.
Overall, the AI industry has become the core force for the development of new quality productivity. As the leader of regional development, local governments should deeply understand the strategic position of the AI industry, actively deploy and formulate forward-looking policies to attract and cultivate AI enterprises. However, in the face of this complex and technology-intensive industry, local governments often need professional guidance and support.
With profound business experience and rich case accumulation, the Prospective AI Industry Planning Institute provides comprehensive and professional AI industry planning services for local governments.
We believe that different regions have different resource endowments, economic development levels, industrial bases and technological innovation capabilities, so we emphasize tailoring the AI industry development plan for each local government according to local conditions.
Our services include, but are not limited to:
· AI Industry Development Positioning Planning: Gain insight into local resource endowment, economic development level, manufacturing base, and technological innovation capabilities, and provide the most suitable planning scheme for regional industrial development.
· Investment promotion strategy for the AI industry: In-depth analysis of global and domestic AI industry development trends, interpretation of relevant policies, and intelligent support for top-level design for local governments.
· Selection of AI subdivided industry tracks: According to the actual situation and development needs of local governments, combined with the accurate grasp of industrial development status, select subdivided industry tracks with development potential.
· Compilation of investment map of AI industry chain: Draw a map of the AI industry chain, clarify the investment focus of each link, attract investment from high-quality enterprises, and promote industrial agglomeration.
The development prospects of the AI industry are broad, and the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute is willing to work with local governments to jointly open a new chapter in the development of the AI industry and contribute to the prosperity of the regional economy and the country's manufacturing power strategy. Let us all hope that under the guidance of professional think tanks, the AI industry can become a powerful engine to promote regional economic development.
The Economist APP Industry Observation Group
For more industry research and analysis, please see:
[1] "2024-2029 Chinese Intelligent Industry Development Prospect Forecast and Investment Strategic Planning Analysis Report", Prospective Industry Research Institute
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