Reborn multinational giant - Chapter 860

The war between alpha and Ke Jie has attracted worldwide attention, and also triggered extensive discussion on AI technology among Internet users around the world.

Major Internet companies around the world, including Alibaba, Google and Microsoft, have increased their attention and investment in AI.

Hangzhou Alibaba headquarters, President Ma, Zhang Yong, Cai Chongxin and several other core executives of Alibaba, as well as several technical leaders of Alibaba, gathered to discuss important matters.

“Jianfeng, everyone who should come today has come. Please tell us your proposal again!” Mr. Ma looked at a middle-aged man wearing glasses and said.

Zhang Jianfeng, chairman of Alibaba Technical Committee and one of CTO and partners of Alibaba group.

Zhang Jianfeng glanced at everyone in the meeting room and said:

“OK, Mr. Ma and Mr. Zhang, let me give you a brief description of my ideas and suggestions.

In recent years, the world’s top Internet companies, including Huizhong, Microsoft and Google, have made a lot of deployment and investment in cutting-edge technology fields such as AI, Internet of things and 5g.

The industry is optimistic and believe that these fields are the core technology direction in the future. Whoever can master these fields will have the voice and initiative in the future Internet and high-tech fields.

Although Alibaba also has layout and investment in these aspects, there are still great deficiencies and gaps compared with Huizhong, Microsoft and other companies.

So my suggestion is to set up a special organization to promote the deployment, exploration and R & D of this work. ”

“Well, I don’t quite understand. Didn’t we just set up Alibaba’s technical committee last year? Wouldn’t it be OK for you to take the lead in doing these things?” Peng Lei, Alibaba’s most famous female partner, asked puzzled.

“Mr. Peng, the Alibaba Technical Committee established last year is mainly to lead and plan the technical system, talent training and technical reserves within the whole group.

The work of the technical committee is aimed at the internal of the group, aiming at the existing technical route, technical difficulties, middle platform construction, repeated wheel construction, and technical direction construction in the next few years.

The AI, Internet of things and other technologies I just mentioned are not directly related to the current core business of our group. They are long-term and future technologies, and their role will gradually appear and play in the long term in the future.

The technical committee is realistic, and I propose that the new organization be virtual. ”

Zhang Jianfeng’s explanation was very popular. Basically, every senior executive on the scene heard it clearly and understood what he meant.

“Jianfeng submitted relevant proposals to President Ma and me at the beginning of this year. We have talked many times before. For example, Microsoft, Google and even Baidu have set up laboratories and research institutes for AI and other future science and technology fields.

The future research institute established by Huizhong a few years ago has been in the limelight in the past two years. Ali alone has made little achievements in this regard.

Jianfeng was right in saying that whoever has mastered these future fields will have the voice and initiative in the future Internet and high-tech fields.

Ten years ago, Apple launched IOS and Google launched Android. Relying on these two systems alone, the two companies have a strong dominance and monopoly over the global mobile Internet industry.

In the short term, the investment in R & D exploration for the future is huge, but in the long term, its return and income are far greater than the investment! ”

Zhang Yong, who sits first on President Ma’s right and has taken over the CEO position of Alibaba group, said.

As the prospective leader of Alibaba and the successor appointed by President Ma, Zhang Yong’s words carry a lot of weight. After he finished, President Ma, who has not spoken for a long time, finally opened his mouth:

“I think the biggest difference between the new organization Jianfeng wants to establish and the current Alibaba Technical Committee is that the current Alibaba technical committee basically depends on our Alibaba internal technical talents and engineers.

The newly established institutions should attract more talents and scientists from the society and be good at cooperating with universities and top scientific research forces.

Throughout human history, those great inventions were basically made by top scientists in the laboratory, and then commercialized by enterprises and popularized to the society and the world.

Although Alibaba is now a big company, there is still a big gap between the talent level and scientific research strength and those top scientists, university professors, experts and scholars, and even Nobel laureates.

Most of our talents concentrate on business and making money. How can we compare with those who concentrate on scientific research in terms of technical depth?

As you can see, the model of Huizhong future research institute is very good. By establishing several important scientific research centers around the world, cooperating with many top scientific research institutions such as universities and research institutes, and giving certain scientific research funding support to those experts,

When there are scientific research achievements, Huizhong can also contact and master them at the first time, and quickly complete the transformation from laboratory scientific research achievements to commercial products.

In these two days, Huizhong’s alpha has been in the limelight again, allowing enterprises all over the world to see Huizhong’s R & D strength in the AI field.

I also heard that alpha has penetrated into many businesses of Huizhong. I believe that even if the Internet of things of computers, cars, even washing machines and refrigerators all over the world will be ruled by alpha in the future.

In this regard, we Alibaba cannot lag behind others.

If Alibaba wants to be a 102 year enterprise spanning three centuries, we must have this long-term vision and foolish public spirit.

I had tea with Fang zhe before. He told me many times that he hoped to make Huizhong future research institute a great scientific research holy land that can change human history and promote the development and progress of human civilization like Bell Labs.

A few years ago, I scoffed at his idea and felt a little naive. After all, if you want to achieve that level, the investment of funds and time are massive, and the results are not necessarily output. It is likely to make wedding clothes for others.

However, after Alibaba went public in the past two years, I began to consider it from the perspective of the world and all mankind. Only then did I find my past thinking of a frog at the bottom of a well.

Now, when Alibaba has reached the position close to the world’s top, whether we want to become a real world top or a prosperous enterprise, we need to lay a good foundation for Alibaba’s core competitiveness in the next decade, 20 years, even 30 years and 50 years.

If we are not willing to spend money today, what will Alibaba rely on to compete with other large companies 20, 30 or even 70 or 80 years later?

So today, I think Jianfeng’s proposal to set up a new institution is imperative! ”

President Ma’s speech unified the thinking of Alibaba’s core executives. Alibaba, a giant, has also taken a strategic step again.

Alibaba Dharma Institute and Alibaba Global Research Institute, a scientific research institution established by Alibaba for the future technology field, officially entered the intense preparatory stage.