N-M Chapter 1450 Frontier and Exhaustion (5k)
Chapter 1450 Frontier and Exhaustion (5k)
Chapter 1450 Frontier and Exhaustion (5k)
The changes in Nasdaq's short position data were just a small episode. What really made the outside world pay more attention to Yike was that its first half press conference finally came.
In the past two years, Yike held a spring press conference in the first half of the year, but this year it has been postponed to summer.
It was May and the weather was getting hot. After withdrawing from the US market, Yi Ke set the date for the 9th. However, when it was confirmed that it would be hosted by YMS President Qi He, the outside world's expectations suddenly lowered.
It's not that Qi He is not a senior executive. His resume and the YMS business group he is currently in charge of are quite good, but he is far away from the fields that are currently attracting much attention, such as mobile phones, tablets, and hardware supply chains.
Many media believe that from such personnel arrangements, they can guess whether Yike will respond to many difficult problems currently faced by companies in this press conference.
Some media also hope that Mr. Fang can be the host. If that is not possible, Mr. Yu will also be fine.
Qi He noticed this kind of talk and felt a little annoyed, but he couldn't say anything... Damn it, they really guessed it right...
This press conference really can’t answer those questions…
Even the next press conference which has not yet been scheduled is not sure whether it will be possible...
Qi He didn't want to host this press conference at first, but since everyone else had their reasons in advance and Mr. Fang had named him, he had no choice but to go.
He had only one request, which was that Mr. Fang could be present to support him, however, this request was also rejected.
However, on the evening of the 8th, Qi He received another notice from Secretary Liu that the boss would be present the next day.
"Didn't Mr. Fang say he wouldn't come tomorrow? Why did you change your mind?" Qi He was surprised.
"There are foreign guests coming to watch the press conference, and Mr. Fang feels that it would be impolite not to attend," Liu Zonghong replied. "For example, Huang Renxun of Nvidia brought gifts. I wonder if there is anything else."
"Okay." Qi He said angrily, "I thought Mr. Fang was being kind."
Liu Zonghong pretended not to hear.
Yike’s press conference will still be held at the Yike Center, but there will be no formal media session.
Because Huang Renxun and others arrived in a hurry, Fang Zhuo did not entertain them late at night. He just exchanged pleasantries over the phone and did not meet this group of visitors from Silicon Valley until the next morning.
YiKe withdrew from the US market and encountered restrictions from Washington, with short-selling institutions watching from the sidelines. The current situation is undoubtedly rather gloomy, but not everyone is looking forward to the demise of YiKe. On the contrary, many companies or executives in Silicon Valley have expressed dissatisfaction with YiKe's abnormal situation.
From music players to smart phones, from proposing the integration of software and hard disk to promoting the development of Android, from challenging giants to becoming the most dazzling giant, Yike's development in these years has also attracted many fans, who are more sympathetic and regretful about Yike's situation.
Of course, Huang Renxun does not have such an idea. The market value of his own company is less than 600 billion US dollars. He is not in the mood to comment on a company like Yike with a market value of more than billion US dollars. He just wants to do his job well.
Therefore, he brought a commemorative edition of DGX-1 signed by himself this time, hoping that Yike would purchase it in large quantities and continue to develop artificial intelligence technology.
Just last month, Nvidia launched the DGX-100 system, a hybrid cube mesh based on P1 GPU accelerators and NVLink ports, coupling eight GPUs into a virtual NUMA shared memory cluster.
Also last month, Huang Renxun once again shouted the slogan "NVIDIA will be an AI company" at GTC 2016.
To do AI, NVIDIA alone is definitely not enough. Moreover, NVIDIA is more in providing tools, so it naturally hopes that more companies and resources will be invested in this field. Yike has previously recruited a group of extremely cutting-edge R&D personnel in Silicon Valley and has been using Siri to collect data. It has great potential for breakthroughs in this cutting-edge field.
Although Yike is now in crisis, Huang Renxun believes that as long as it gets through this difficult time, it will continue to invest in cutting-edge fields.
That morning, Huang Renxun chatted a lot in the president's office of Yike 23 and also saw Yike's robot, which has been named "Guard".
Fang Zhuo continued to let Guard pour coffee for everyone as he had shown to many visitors, and still received everyone's praise.
"Mr. Fang, your algorithm and processing are the best I have ever seen!" Huang Renxun praised.
Fang Zhuo did not hide the truth: "I heard them say that the current recognition is all static, dynamic recognition is much worse, and it needs to be improved in all aspects. I saw that you demonstrated the results of autonomous driving at CES, which can run complex deep learning programs at a speed of 184 frames per second. This is pretty good. When will it be implemented?"
Nvidia wants to transform itself into an AI company. In addition to hardware, it is also conducting research on applications. Huang Renxun previously discussed with Tesla's Musk the development prospects of assisted driving systems and even autonomous driving systems.
Huang Renxun smiled and pointed to the guard robot next to the door: "It will probably land at the same speed as this Guard."
Fang Zhuo laughed, this indeed requires more effort.
Seeing that the time was almost up, the group took a car to the Yike Center, and Fang Zhuo was still chatting with Huang Renxun about deep learning on the way.
Huang Renxun knew that Yike had established the "Kunpeng" electric car project, and also saw with his own eyes the research of Yike's robots. He was more interested than when he first came.
"Mr. Fang, I think whether it is autonomous driving on electric vehicles or revolutionary products like robots, they all need to rely on a more core 'brain'."
"Without the brain, it would be difficult for us to make great progress in our research on limbs."
"Of course, I'm not saying that electric cars are not a good business. Tesla is actually doing quite well now."
"I just think that if we want to see more exciting progress, we need to..."
Huang Renxun pointed to his head.
"This progress is difficult. Yike has not stopped its investment in this area. We have given great support to Professor Andrew Ng and others." Fang Zhuo slowed down his speech and spread his hands. "But it is true, not only I say this, Professor Wu and others are also frank, this is difficult and it will take time."
Huang Renxun expressed his feelings: "I think the industry is already on the road to that singularity, and there will definitely be dazzling results in the future."
Fang Zhuo smiled and said, "How far into the future is this singularity?"
"No matter how far you go, patience and determination are essential." Huang Renxun said here, and then changed the subject, "So, excellent hardware is also necessary. Our DGX-1 can definitely provide support for Yi Ke's research."
"So...how much does such super hardware cost?" Fang Zhuo laughed.
"The retail price is $12.9." Huang Renxun said seriously, "Mr. Fang, if Yike can purchase in large quantities, we can discuss the price."
Fang Zhuo has already seen the DGX-1 signed by Huang Renxun in the office. It is said that it will be officially launched in Q4 this year and its performance is comparable to that of 250 CPU servers.
But this is not just a matter of purchasing a large amount of hardware, but also a choice of using the CUDA ecosystem in depth.
"Nvidia's hardware products are excellent, but you also know that Yike is facing some unfair treatment now." Fang Zhuo said thoughtfully, "Yike is of course willing to continue to invest in research and development in this field. You also believe that there will be a singularity in this field, but at that time, what will Yike do if it is targeted by Washington again?"
"I believe Yike will definitely have a record after what happened in Washington," Huang said frankly. "If that time comes, Nvidia will express its opinions, but just like Yike YMS fills the gap of Google's GMS in China, Yike will also have its own team."
He added: "Mr. Fang, I believe in Yike's competitiveness. Don't you believe it?"
Fang Zhuo laughed: "I believe it too."
Huang Renxun knew that Yike had its own server chips and had purchased AMD's core architecture. In addition, it had manufacturing capabilities like Bingxin International, so it must have research and development in the field of GPU.
But no matter for NVIDIA or Yike, the future is the future, and it is still unknown when we can see a singularity.
Huang Renxun hopes that the CUDA ecosystem can become more powerful and that a new platform can be built. He even spoke frankly to Fang Zhuo about his ideas in this regard.
The Yike Center was bustling with people. There were still many media reporters attending this time. After seeing Mr. Fang and others enter, their enthusiasm for interviews was revealed in their desperately moving steps.
Fang Zhuo just smiled and didn't respond to the questions thrown in the air.
Huang Renxun looked at the situation and couldn't help but say, "Everyone is very concerned about Yi Ke's situation."
"Yes, everyone is dissatisfied with the restrictions that Yi Ke has encountered." Fang Zhuo said calmly, "This problem will be solved sooner or later."
The second thing Huang Renxun wanted to say was answered in the second half of the sentence.
Yike's press conference did not go beyond the expectations of the media and the industry. This time, no mobile phones and conventional tablet products were launched. Instead, the Y-Book was updated and the Yike TV with smart home integration was launched. In addition, Qi He also introduced the further development of the business scope of Yike Cloud business on the stage.
Huang Renxun seemed to be listening with great interest. Nvidia once tried to make products based on mobile phone chips and even cooperated with Yike's entry-level mobile phones, but there was no response in the market.
Now I am sitting in the front row, feeling the struggle of this world-renowned mobile phone brand in its predicament... I still feel very involved.
When the press conference was about to end, Huang Renxun saw Mr. Fang's calm expression and asked a question: "Mr. Fang, what do you think of our company's current transformation? I heard that MIGA Fund is optimistic about our company's stock?"
Fang Zhuo nodded slightly: "Yes, MIGA Fund has invested in many US listed companies, such as NVIDIA... Like Elder, our vice president of technology, he mentioned you at the meeting last month."
Huang Renxun became interested and was curious about Yi Ke’s internal evaluation.
Fang Zhuo did not keep the secret and continued, "Elder gave a high evaluation. He believed that NVIDIA really wanted to make a difference in the field of deep learning (DL), unlike companies like AMD and Intel that just pay lip service to it. NVIDIA is considering DL as the company's main goal in the future."
He smiled and said, "Elder also said that you are good at managing frontline engineers, assigning tasks, and checking progress. You are the boss of a large company who has the deepest understanding of the details of new technologies. He called on me to learn from you."
Huang Renxun laughed but did not deny this detail. He knew that Elder, the vice president in charge of YiKe's R&D strategy, was a Stanford graduate and had made great contributions to YiKe in recent years. He also basically replaced YiKe's former CTO Xu Keden.
“I really think the development of DL is accelerating. Of course, the mainstream view now is that artificial intelligence is still a long way from a breakthrough in the singularity.” Huang Renxun said thoughtfully after laughing, “But when that day comes, we will look back and realize that this process of turning the impossible into the possible is the charm of what we do.”
Fang Zhuo agrees: "I also like the challenge of turning the impossible into the possible."
Huang Renxun knew that Mr. Fang had another meaning. Many institutions considered Yike's current crisis to be a desperate situation. According to predictions, Bingxin International's photoresist might be exhausted this month, and the next step would be a difficult time for the operation of this system.
Fang Zhuo looked at Qi He on the stage and said, "Give us a 50% discount, and Yi Ke can place a large order."
Huang Renxun stopped drinking water and turned his head to ask, "Mr. Duo? Mr. Fang, you mean Mr. Duo?"
"12.9 US dollars, the actual material cost is only 1, you're lucky. Add the R&D cost and the cost of your ecological platform, 1 US dollars, you will definitely make a lot of money." Fang Zhuo said seriously.
Huang Renxun said unhappily: "Mr. Fang, do you think this is possible?"
Fang Zhuo sighed, "Making the impossible possible, isn't that the charm of what we do?"
Huang Renxun snorted, feeling that Mr. Fang looked particularly unattractive at this moment.
"Mr. Huang, you also know Yike's current situation. I really like NVIDIA's CUDA ecosystem. Please make sure Yike contributes to this ecosystem." Fang Zhuo advised.
He continued: "It's just like Yi Ke joined the Android camp."
NVIDIA's CUDA ecosystem is a comprehensive environment built around CUDA technology, covering hardware, software tools, programming models, libraries, frameworks, applications, and support services.
Seeing that Huang Renxun did not respond, Fang Zhuo finally said: "Nvidia is the leader in the industry. Yike is very willing to cooperate with you. Otherwise, do we have to hold our noses and use Intel's Xeon Phi?"
Intel also has a presence in the field of deep learning. In 12, it launched the Xeon Phi for high-performance computing, and this year it launched the second-generation Xeon Phi coprocessor code-named Knights Landing.
In other words, it actually launches a general-purpose computing card similar to the GPU, but reuses the CPU's software ecosystem to compete with the GPU.
Judging from Yike's current usage, Nvidia has not opened up a big gap with Intel, and the latter can still compete with the former.
However, the DGX-1 brought by Nvidia this time uses the P100 GPU, and the gap in parameters is already widening.
Of course Huang Renxun understood what Mr. Fang meant. Yi Ke had a choice.
He frowned and said, "Boss Fang, bargaining too hard will easily make people hate you."
Fang Zhuo smiled slightly: "There are too many people who hate me."
Qi He on the stage completed Yike's first half year press conference and bowed to the guests and media. Applause broke out from the audience, and many media began to get excited again.
"Let's go, Mr. Huang. There are many people who love me. They are coming up with their cameras." Fang Zhuo said with a smile, "Both hatred and love drive Yi Ke forward. I hope to make the impossible possible sooner."
At this point, Huang Renxun finally asked about Yike’s most difficult situation: “Mr. Fang, can Yike solve the problem of photoresist?”
He didn't get an answer, but he saw Mr. Fang's indescribable, probably calm look.
Huang Renxun pondered these looks and the atmosphere he felt when he got here, and always felt that it could probably be solved.
The group did not accept the media's interviews. Huang Renxun gave his price on the way back: "Mr. Fang, Yike can purchase a batch to try. NVIDIA will give priority to supply before Q8 at a price of $4."
"8 dollars, OK." Fang Zhuo agreed immediately and put forward another condition, "DGX-1, plus the P100 computing card you use for it."
The price is probably less than 40% off.
Huang Renxun sighed and wished: "I hope Yi Ke can become world-famous in DL again."
Fang Zhuo shook hands and wished: "Keep working hard together. MIGA Fund has bought your stocks."
He gave another suggestion: "You can go to Google to promote your products and tell them that Yike has also purchased a large number of your computing cards and has firmly rejected Intel. They are also very serious about their investment in this area."
Huang Renxun could only laugh, this was indeed his plan.
That evening, Fang Zhuo entertained guests from Silicon Valley, and later in the evening, he listened to the general office's review of today's press conference.
Yike's Y-Book laptop is actually very powerful, equipped with Intel's latest I7 and I5, and its performance ratio is quite good.
Because of this, as soon as the announcement was made, there were voices in the United States criticizing Washington, saying that it was giving the green light for Intel to export to Yico.
BIS actually responded quickly, claiming that it would consider the ever-changing technological situation and continuously evaluate how their control measures could better protect domestic security and policy interests.
This does not mean that Intel's temporary license will be immediately cancelled, but it proves that BIS is still paying close attention to Yi Ke's situation.
The general office discussed this reaction for a while and felt that the future situation was still not optimistic, but it seemed that they had become accustomed to this pessimism.
At the same time, Qi He also reflected a little on his performance at the press conference. He mentioned on stage that there will be no advertisements on Yike TV and believed that TV advertisements are far more uncomfortable for users than mobile phone advertisements.
However, such remarks have been criticized a lot on social media platforms, and some friendly competitors have complained that there is no need to be so implicit about whether Yike advertises or whether YMS, which you manage, promotes advertisements.
Qi He listened to his colleagues' feelings and suddenly asked his boss: "Mr. Fang, if you want to introduce it, how should you say it?"
The boss is a seasoned press conference insider, so it would be great to learn from his experience.
"It's good to speak from the user's perspective. I would almost say the same thing as you do." Fang Zhuo replied.
Qi He: "Huh?"
Fang Zhuo said calmly: "You said that if someone scolds you, they may not scold me for what I said."
Qi He: "..."
Liu Qiangdong, who was standing next to him, laughed and said, "What Mr. Fang said was probably meant to scold Mr. Qi. Mr. Fang had good intentions, but Mr. Qi, who was in charge of YMS, had problems with execution."
YMS is in charge of advertising revenue. This year, it still does not accept medical advertisements, but it did add some advertising content to recover revenue, which is relatively simple.
Qi He was helpless: "Okay, I can help you share your worries."
Fang Zhuo nodded, tapped the table with his fingers, and said the biggest worry at the moment: "The photoresist of Bingxin will be consumed within a week."
After working overtime, Bing Xin finally used up all the photoresist.
The atmosphere in the conference room suddenly became tense.
Fang Zhuo seemed not to notice this and continued, "Bingxin's next task is to maintain and calibrate the production line, do some non-photolithography processes, turn to the research and development testing of new materials and new processes, as well as optimization experiments on existing processes, and quality control and reliability testing of some processes."
This is what you can still do after losing the photoresist.
Fang Zhuo calmly narrated these things, and finally said: "Then we just need to wait for the return of our photoresist and the restoration of production capacity, is that ok?"
The atmosphere in the conference room was restored first.
"no problem."
(End of this chapter)