Baidu will open an autopilot platform, domestic cars will laugh, Tesla, Uber want to cry?
Late at night on April 18th, 2017, the vice president and president of Chinese search engine giant Baidu, the former global executive vice president of Microsoft, and the highest ranking person in the Silicon Valley, Lu Qi, arrived in Shanghai quietly. The media in the automotive industry rarely knows that Lu Qi will appear at the Shanghai Auto Show held the next day.
The wealthy Baidu only rented a conference room of the Shanghai Auto Show Organizing Committee, instead of a high-end five-star hotel like the Four Seasons Hotel or Ritz-Carlton, a small wave of technology media was invited. In fact, the car media of that day was desperately crowded into the booth of Weilai Automobile, witnessing the launching ceremony of the world's first production car NIO ES8.
However, the atomic bomb of the news exploded from a small conference room, so that the old and wet media in the auto show were caught off guard, and it was Lu Qigan. In that small break meeting room, Baidu announced that it will open unmanned driving capacity to all partners free of charge.
Open content includes: vehicle platform, hardware platform, software platform and cloud platform. Baidu will open code or capabilities for functions such as environment awareness, path planning, vehicle control, and vehicle operating systems, and provide complete development testing tools.
With the help of Baidu, manufacturers and application service providers can quickly build their own complete autonomous driving system. Many people have to collapse.
Driverlessness is seen as the highest core technology in the automotive industry. To overcome it, GM spent $1 billion to acquire Cruise, Ford spent $1 billion to acquire Argo.AI, Uber spent $680 million to acquire OTTO, and invested $1 billion in Pittsburgh, Volkswagen, Toyota, BMW, Mercedes-Benz The investment will be calculated in the billions of dollars, and thousands of engineers will be recruited. Google has organized a cutting-edge team to tackle this problem for 8 years. In these years, only one engineer’s salary, they paid 120 million. US dollars. Including Baidu, according to Wang Jin, who has left the company, he has already invested 20 billion yuan. Now, these investments have become meaningless, because any car company, using the ability of Baidu to open up, can make the world's top driverless technology for almost a penny.
This plan is called the "Apollo Plan." Countless people are crying in the toilet. The result is that the industry’s investment in research and development in the unmanned field of up to tens of billions of dollars will likely be squandered. Of course, many people will also enjoy the flowers.
This is Lu Qi, such crazy action, low-key and deadly shots, reflecting his style of acting. Hobbies are temperamental, crazy and sharp. This is Lu Qi, who can propose such an imaginative plan and have the ability to advance such a plan. This is Lu Qi, and in just a few months, it will be able to make a splash on the global driverless map.
Is Baidu crazy?
Yes, it’s crazy, but it’s crazy, a kind of madness that “will be a million people.†This will inevitably get rid of many people's jobs, remember the free anti-virus software battle? All anti-virus software companies have died, leaving one. What makes Baidu so crazy?
Remember win-tel and ARM-Qualcomm - IOS and Android? The top 3 of the global market capitalization list is Apple with IOS, Google with Android and Microsoft with Windows. In the era of unmanned rivers and lakes, and even artificial intelligence, the Baidu fleet led by Lu Qi hopes to become the software OS and definer. This is a trillion-dollar business and the war has started.
Where is the opportunity for Baidu? Lu Qi, once regarded as the successor of Ballmer, and former Chinese richest man Li Yanhong, have long been the masters of the first class in the rivers and lakes. Such a major strategy must be a well-thought-out result. What is Baidu's dependence?
1. NLP is the world's number one, and Baidu's deep speech2 is also the second place in the Massachusetts Science and Technology Review “Top Ten Breakthrough Technologies in 2016â€.
2, CV (computer vision), especially in the field of driverless, is the world's number one.
3, AI capabilities global TOP4, world-class AI R & D team.
4, the best 3D high-precision map in China, and almost monopolized map operation status.
5. The Chinese auto market is the world's largest auto market. Most Chinese automakers have not invested heavily in the driverless sector and need the help of Baidu.
What does Baidu want to get? data! data! data! And ultimately the rule of ecology.
For unmanned driving, the AI ​​algorithm, the superb computing power cluster, is not the threshold for companies like BAT. The only threshold is the data, and the continuous increase in capacity due to the increase in data.
Lu Qi’s strategy is very clear, providing free unmanned solutions for partners in the automotive and transportation ecosystem. The more vehicles use Baidu’s technology platform, they can get more data and continue to train themselves through data. Unmanned level.
Once this closed-loop formation, Ali, Tencent, Huawei, Google and other companies want to replace Baidu will encounter two thresholds:
1. Large-scale vehicles are already using Baidu's unmanned platform, replacing the cost, including research and development costs and subversion of user habits.
2. Baidu relies on a large amount of data to continuously improve its capabilities. Including cognitive aspects of CV (computer vision), interactive aspects of NLP (Natural Speech Processing), further improve 3D high-precision maps, and use a large number of driving behavior to enhance unmanned driving ability. At the same time, it also improved Baidu's AI level.
Baidu uses existing users as a case, and the ability of these users to use to further enhance market share. Any competitor, even if it invests more engineers, more computing resources and R&D budget, can hardly shake Baidu's leading position in the driverless field without a lot of data.
After gradually eliminating competitors, Baidu will have the ability to formulate rules for the entire ecosystem. For example, the chip supplier, the hardware supplier of the sensing module, the supplier of the communication module, etc., all need to listen to Baidu’s greetings. In the era of mobile Internet, Intel missed the cooperation with Apple and lost the entire mobile Internet market. In the era of AI and the mobile Internet, such things will continue to happen.
Who is crying?
The $15.3 billion acquisition of mobileye's Intel is crying, and Baidu's behavior has greatly reduced the value of his acquisition. Intel's CEO Ke Zaiqi needs to urgently tackle Baidu and ask Baidu to be compatible with their AI processor.
GM, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Uber will all be very depressed. Have you been feeding dogs for unmanned driving in the past few years? These companies have invested at least $10 billion in the driverless sector, not only acquiring the company, but also recruiting thousands of engineers. Some people now say that my car's driverless technology doesn't cost money, and it's better for you than for you. The more terrible thing is that technology will get better and better.
For car companies that have invested heavily, they will definitely not give up and will die all the way with Baidu. If Baidu is made, their business will die.
Tesla will also feel awkward. For a long time in the past, its ADAS technology has been leading the way in vehicles, and happily acquired a large amount of driving behavior data, and now it is no longer a barrier in the unmanned field. Musk has only one move, desperately selling cars on a large scale, to see if he can quickly make his own ecology, and avoid being "swallowed up" by the Baidu camp.
Google's waymo will feel the most embarrassing. For a long time, Google has maintained a huge psychological advantage for Baidu. The main difference is that Google has Android.
Now that Baidu wants to open unmanned driving, then the split of Waymo is meaningless. The business model of selling software by selling driverless technology has been blocked, and Waymo is no longer profitable, nor can it be listed separately through operations. They don't have a lot of choices, either follow Baidu's strategy and promote unmanned driving to the company level, which is personally looked after and promoted by Page; or driven out of the market.
The saddest thing is that even if Google is offered for free, there are not many car companies that are willing to use his technology in the United States, because GM, Ford and Tesla are all developing their own driverless technology. In the past eight years, Google has invested at least a few billion dollars in the field of driverless driving.
Startups also suffered up to 10,000 crit damage. The entrepreneurs on the tall, have a very good resume and background, and got a lot of financing with very high valuation. Now the value of their work has been greatly discounted, decisively said, or worthless. A large number of VCs are crying in the toilet at the same time, and their investment seems to be in vain. If these companies want to survive, I am afraid that they need to transform immediately: Path 1, to help vehicle companies or logistics companies develop and integrate Baidu-based driverless technology. Path 2, using Baidu technology to develop new applications, to do their own operations.
Ali, Tencent, Huawei cried. Ali has been closing the door and silently developing driverless driving, hoping to pursue Baidu. Tencent is crazy about buying and buying to achieve its own industrial layout. Huawei is also quietly developing artificial intelligence and driverlessness than Ali, constantly recruiting teams and recruiting people from mature car companies. However, how do you play the cards next? How can I follow up? Upgrade to corporate strategy and Baidu dead? If not, how do you compete with Baidu? Brain cells will die in large pieces.
Who laughs?
Cheng Wei, who traveled by Didi, first laughed. It is very difficult to recruit people in the Silicon Valley to open an AI lab. Now, there is no need to invest in AI technology on a large scale. Even if it is done, it may not be competitive in the future. Too happy, Didi only needs to take advantage of its core operations, and properly make itself the world's largest travel service provider, leaving the rest to Baidu.
The Chinese car company laughed. Earlier, Changan Automobile made a investment plan of up to 20 billion yuan, and signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Intel yesterday to jointly promote the development of driverless cars. It seems that this large amount of research and development costs must be saved.
Chery smiled, BYD smiled, Beiqi smiled, GAC smiled, Weimar smiled, the car and the house laughed... Weilai Automobile, LeTV, Geely Automobile, Great Wall Motor may feel not happy. However, the loss is not great.
China's express delivery industry laughed, and did not have to invest huge sums of money to do high-tech research and development. Originally, the gross profit was thin, and it was really impossible to invest heavily in research and development. There is no need to worry about this, everyone is at the same starting line.
Jingdong and SF may have a little loss. However, the situation is stronger than people, and the mentality is open. The cooperation will work together.
The next competition
Baidu will quickly promote the construction of the open platform with the execution of Lu Qi, export the explanatory documents, form an extremely strong BD team, and promote the construction of the ecosystem. BD will be divided into two departments, one is the cooperation of KA's major customers, and the other is channel cooperation. Many unmanned startups must transform immediately and become an intermediary for Baidu's unmanned driving applications, helping him to collaborate with partners in various fields and helping them build an unmanned ecosystem and earn a certain amount of development costs.
In various fields, Baidu will establish a typical cooperation model and use its traffic resources to carry out a large number of promotion and promotion to help them succeed. Various brand promotion will be overwhelming.
Undoubtedly, with Lu Qi's vision and pattern, BD work for the international market will start simultaneously and compete for the market on a global scale.
Baidu's unmanned applications will definitely advance at the L3 level, so that you can quickly obtain a large amount of driving behavior data and train your own capabilities. It seems that Google, Ford and the original Baidu-led L4-level unmanned technology route are nearing failure.
Google, Ali, Tencent, and Huawei need to consider whether to follow Baidu’s strategy. Car Reviewer believes that in the next few months, they will announce their plans or silently exit the battlefield. Google and Ali are afraid to have to fight, and Tencent is likely to withdraw, Huawei is very embarrassed.
Because if you lose in the unmanned ecological war, it also means that the competition on the AI ​​platform has lost an important battle. Make Baidu stay ahead in important areas such as CV and CLP. Especially unacceptable to Google, Google needs to free its own capabilities, and attacks like the US outside the market, especially China. But because there is no map, it is estimated that it is not good. Ali has a position in the field of logistics, and also has a map of Gao De. At this time, it is necessary to go up and fight with Baidu. Tencent's AI application, I am afraid, will first turn to the content field, to put an eye on today's headlines. BAT's AI war in the content field will also occur.
OEMs such as GM, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo must die. They hope that the threshold for driverless driving is not so high. Once they cross the past, the technology will not be problematic at the application level.
All suppliers must now follow Baidu in order to be included in the ecosystem.
Apple is the only uncertainty because he will build his own ecosystem. Apple not only has an unmanned technology platform, but also has IOS in the car and a huge application ecosystem.
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