Netease Technology News April 21, Alibaba Group Chief Technology Officer Zhang Jianfeng said in an interview with the media, Alibaba began to lay out the chip strategy four years ago. In 2014, Ali invested in Zhongtianwei for the first time, and pursued it again in 2017. A wholly-owned purchase is already in place.
On April 20 of the previous day, Alibaba announced that it had wholly owned the China-based Microsystems Co., Ltd., the only independent embedded CPU IP Core company in mainland China.
It is reported that in addition to the embedded chip's Zhongtian Micro, Alibaba also has a series of investments and deployments in terms of network chips, mobile phone chips, IOT chips, etc. Up to now, Ali has also invested in the Cambrian, Barefoot Networks, Shen Jian, Kneron, ASR and other five chip companies.
At the same time, as an important part of Ali's IOT strategy, Alibaba Dharma has established a senior professional team to conduct independent research and development of AI chips.
'Alibaba's IOT strategy must be controlled by resources, technology is controllable, and it has core competitiveness. The bottom line is the chip,' said Zhang Jianfeng. 'This is also the most important breakthrough in research since the establishment of Alibaba. one' .
In October 2017, at the Alibaba Cloud Conference, Zhang Jianfeng announced that Alibaba has established a global research institute under the name of 'Dharma'. Currently, it has set up scientific research institutes in multiple locations around the world, based on basic science, disruptive technologies and applied technologies. Research.
Zhang Jianfeng said that it is difficult for China to achieve breakthroughs in the chip industry, but it is not without opportunities, not to mention unattainable. Especially in certain areas facing the future, China and the United States are on the same starting line, such as artificial intelligence. He said : For example, the Internet of Things represented by urban brains and smart cities brings demand for new types of chips. At present, there are no mature chips in the global industry. This brings the opportunity for renewed competition. Fields have the opportunity to master core competencies.
'We expect a couple of years later, there will be two to three billion devices connected to the chip, and the core of the chip will be handled. The scope and scale of the chip's demand today are not at all in an order of magnitude compared to the future. It will be several hundred. Thousands of times of growth, the opportunity for China to achieve a breakthrough is in it," Zhang Jianfeng analyzed.
'This is equivalent to the appearance of another track. If breakthroughs are made in the above areas, it means that Chinese enterprises have achieved lane change and overtaking. This is also the reason why Alibaba began to lay out its chip strategy four years ago.', Jianfeng Zhang Say.
To achieve 'change lanes', Zhang Jianfeng believes that all sectors of industry, research, and research in China must work together to achieve breakthroughs. Because the 'chip strategy is not an eternal task, enterprises including Alibaba are determined to invest for a long time. They must also have a future-oriented strategy. Vision and tolerance of loneliness perseverance'.
Finally, Zhang Jianfeng concluded that in the field of chips, as in any other field of the era of globalization, there is both global competition and global cooperation. In the global market, there is no one else. This is the basis of reality, and it is also the Chinese production, research and development. The direction of joint efforts of all walks of life.