'Cambrian' or a technology company, supporting this company is a pair of 80 after the brothers, brother Chen Yun 霁 focus on research and development, his brother Chen Tianshi is committed to the company's operations.
In early November 2017, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Cambrian Technology Corp. announced the 'Cambrian' generation of next-generation products, including high-performance intelligent processors for smartphones and the cloud. "Chen Tianshi, chairman and CEO of the company, announced at the press conference: Cambrian 'is confident that it will cover 30% of China's high-performance smart chip market in 3 years and integrate the' Cambrian 'terminal intelligent processor with more than 1 billion intelligent terminal devices in the world. Established only a year, and that is, one year, 'Cambrian' has become the valuation of nearly 1 billion US dollars in smart chip Unicorn company.
The Cambrian in the History of Artificial Intelligence
Has entered the ZhongKeDai juvenile class, later with the Chinese academy of sciences computer researcher, ChenYunTian, ChenTianShi has been known as 'genius brothers'.
The brothers often talked about the problems together since they were young. After they were adults, they all joined the computational discipline. Although they did one chip and one studied artificial intelligence, their ideal gradually converged and they hoped to develop a product called artificial intelligence chip.
They hope to design the neural network chip through the architecture, and before this the speed and function of the computer hardware have become the bottleneck of the neural network application.
'Once a strong artificial intelligence computer with complex cognitive and creative abilities is created, the entire human community will make an unprecedented stride forward.'
In 1943 scientists engaged in psychology and logic put forward the concept of artificial neural networks, but its development has been limited by the low performance and high power consumption of conventional general purpose processors.
After the target was set, the two brothers started to exert their force, but the reality was far from simple as envisaged, and problems such as technological route and R & D funding came one after another, but the dream of AI has always supported them to do more research.
Under the guidance of Professor Zhou Zhihua of Nanjing University, Chen Brothers proposed a processor structure optimization method based on semi-supervised learning and published papers.
When the result was named, the brothers took a bite of their thoughts and the geological age gave them inspiration. "The Cambrian was a turning point in the history of biological evolution, and until then there was almost no evidence of the presence of higher animals." As a result, the brothers named the achievement Cambrian 1 and hoped that a new generation of computers would take the stage of history and open up a whole new situation in the field of artificial intelligence. '
'Little Naming' of 'Cambrian 1' was named 'Dian Nao' by her brother. "In an ASPLOS conference in the United States in March 2014, Dian Nao: A Small-Scale, High Throughput Machine Learning Accelerator won the best paper award.
This is not only the first time that Chinese research institutes have won the best paper award in the top international conferences in computer systems and high performance computing but also the first in Asia. In December 2014, Chen Brothers launched the 'Cambrian 2' neural network processing (DaDianNao) won the Micro Best Paper of the Year 2014. This is the first time that Micro has won awards outside the United States since its establishment in 1963.
'We benefit from this era'
Take a look at the foreign documents directly translated into Chinese; cell phone camera can automatically identify objects or face ... ... These features have been achieved in a domestic mobile phone, mainly using the 'Cambrian' chip, the machine becomes more intelligent. Improved chip performance, battery standby time is also greatly improved.
Chen Yun 霁 fiddled with the mobile phone, said: 'In the past object recognition, speech recognition tasks that require large servers, or completed on the cloud, and now only the local mobile phone can be achieved without networking. The future of mobile phones is a translator, different languages People only need to wear headphones to understand each other.
It is always the wish of both brothers to make the application of the Cambrian discipline, but the real industrialization has also undergone some trade-offs and discussions. With the support of the CAS Institute of Computing and Computing, in 2016 Cambrian Science and Technology Corporation was established and Chen Tianshi as chairman And CEO, Chen Yun 霁 continue to focus on research.
It is indeed a pity to give up academic, but industrialization is also a new challenge, and it is also a great blessing for researchers to go through the whole process of making an essay to make a product. "To lead a group of people with an average age of only twenty-five Six-year-old 'IT Mavericks', Chen Tianshizi devoted himself to the company operations, a year to achieve a balance of payments, won 200 million orders.
'We have benefited from this era and benefited from the state's policy on scientific researchers.' 'This is the consensus of both brothers, at first Cambrian Technology accounted for 70% of the shares and the CAS Computer accounted for 30% of the shares. Financing 10 million US dollars, the company valuation reached 100 million US dollars; in the A round of financing, financing 100 million US dollars, the company valuation of nearly 1 billion US dollars, a unicorn chip business.
A venture company in the valuation of a year to increase 10 times, this growth is cause for concern .As the new kill 'little monster', Chen Tianshi have a clear understanding of 'in the IC industry, start-up companies in financial terms and giants However, the speed and flexibility of innovation may be an advantage.
Without participating in too many business activities and enjoying the freedom of wearing a suit, Chen Yun-tao does not hold a position in the Cambrian technology company nor takes a penny. He is now director of the 'Intelligent Processor Research Center' Conduct basic research and technology development.
See 'Cambrian science and technology' rapid growth, Chen Yun-yan's appreciation of his brother is expressed in ridicule: 'occupational impact on people is large, the character will change, Chen Tian-shih has become from a modest scholar into a Tough business man '.'
Establish the core material carrier of the intelligent era
In the face of the bustling artificial intelligence heat, Chen Yun 霁 has always maintained a calm and rational: 'From a certain point of view is a good thing, you can gather resources, wisdom, capital, but from the basic research point of view, there are many artificial intelligence behind the science and technology The problem, it's not as easy as sharing a platform. '
In the view of Chen Yun-tung, the chip as a material carrier of artificial intelligence, just as the steam engines and engines of the industrial age, would not develop if more people and funds were not gathered. The chip solved only part of artificial intelligence problem.
'Artificial intelligence must have a corresponding CPU.' For example, he said, Google has 16,000 CPU cores in the brain, a week of training can make it a cat, but can not be commercialized, ordinary people can not use, behind this is the technology The problem has not yet been solved, so we must establish the core carrier of the intelligent era. '
Chen Yunhe and Chen Tianshi often argue about some issues, but the two people have the same understanding at one point - 'In the field of chips, we have a smaller gap with advanced countries.'
Chen Tian-shih believes that China and the United States will have great opportunities in the smart industry both in the future and in the future. China and the United States both have the same level of software and hardware. "Cambrian" engaged in the research and development of smart chips and hoped to provide the core material carrier for the smart era.
'The upcoming smart era, our mission is to lead the establishment of China-led, the world's market for the smart industry.' Miss Chen Yun-chun of the mission also saw the gap, 'now the only domestic chip Godson, divinity and other flexor A few, but do the application of the tens of thousands, the market investment is much larger than the CPU as the representative of the basic hardware and software inputs. So AI really stand up, to learn from the previous lessons.
'Cambrian' is the world's first deep learning processor, foreign research institutions and some large companies followed by research and development, but also product applications.But the team tested these products do not follow the performance of 'Cambrian 'One-third of today's' Cambrian' has a number of patents that form a technical barrier.
'It can be said that our mission has shown a weak light and needs external lighting.' Chen Yunlung is thinking that 'China is the largest market and how to mobilize foreign companies to join the Chinese-led ecology and make them conform to our intelligence Software, hardware, chip standard.
'The long-term goal is to make artificial intelligence and make life easier.' But Chen Yun-tang stressed that the current study is 'laying eggs along the way,' and I hope every step of the way will help society.
China Youth Daily · Youth Online reporter Li Xinling Source: China Youth Daily