The first technology VC in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area was established, with 2.5 billion yuan of support from Sinovation Ventures, which is engaged in both investment and AI research and development

Guo Yipu from Guangzhou
Quantum Bit Report | Public Account QbitAI

Today (June 5), the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area headquarters of Innovation Works officially opened. The new headquarters is located at No. 23 Guangpu Middle Road, Huangpu District, Guangzhou.

This is also the first VC in China to clearly expand its presence in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao.

Tao Ning, president of Innovation Works, introduced that Innovation Works has a "three-in-one" layout in the Greater Bay Area, with investments in capital, technology, and business. The Innovation Works Greater Bay Area headquarters has established a localized investment and AI R&D and service team of dozens of people.

At present, Innovation Works has invested in projects such as AInnovation, WeRide, Guoxin, Wandou Thinking, and Qianliao in Guangzhou.

In addition, the third phase of the RMB fund of Sinovation Ventures has been raised, with a fund size of 2.5 billion, settled in Guangzhou, and the main investment directions are artificial intelligence, big data, education, consumption upgrades, B2B enterprise services, etc. As of now, the size of the dual-currency fund managed by Sinovation Ventures is about 15 billion yuan.

Sinovation Ventures AI Institute 2.0

In addition, in addition to Innovation Works itself, the Innovation Works AI Engineering Institute has also been established in Guangzhou.

Wang Yonggang, executive dean of Sinovation Ventures AI Academy, said that Sinovation Ventures AI Academy has entered the 2.0 era.

AI has developed from the stage of technological innovation to the stage of industry empowerment. AI is no longer just a matter for scientific researchers, but must be implemented in the industry and carried out in specific businesses. Therefore, the AI ​​Engineering Institute of Sinovation Ventures has developed from early scientific research to the current stage of industry empowerment.

AI must be closely integrated with business, so it is more difficult to implement. Innovation Works must make a three-in-one effort in investment and financing, business, and technology.

Previously, the AI ​​Engineering Academy was committed to talent cultivation, scientific research and commercial transformation. It held the DeeCamp training camp, conducted open scientific research and technological cooperation, and incubated the commercial company Innovation AInnovation. It has set up seven laboratories including a machine learning laboratory, a computational finance laboratory, a big data laboratory, a smart medical laboratory, a robotics laboratory, an information perception and understanding laboratory, and a process automation laboratory.

In addition, the Sinovation Ventures AI Engineering Institute has currently carried out extensive scientific research, teaching, and talent training work at well-known universities such as the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Nanjing University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

In the 2.0 era, Sinovation Ventures AI Research Institute will set up R&D laboratories for typical application scenarios, develop in multiple locations including Beijing, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and establish a team of industry experts.

Flowers bloom in many places in Nanjing and Guangzhou

Feng Ji, director of the Nanjing branch of Sinovation Ventures Artificial Intelligence Engineering Institute, introduced the status of the Nanjing branch. The Nanjing branch mainly conducts AI robustness and security research, as well as data-driven models in the secondary market. The Godzilla Lab was established to study AI attacks, data privacy and other aspects, and a number of patents have been applied for.

In Guangzhou, Zhang Tong, research partner of Innovation Works, professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and former director of Tencent AI Lab, was appointed honorary dean of the Greater Bay Area Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, and Zhou Zhe, angel investor and Google's first Chinese employee, was appointed senior vice president.

Professor Zhang Tong introduced the structure and development status of Sinovation Ventures Greater Bay Area Artificial Intelligence Research Institute. Sinovation Ventures Greater Bay Area AI Research Institute consists of the Information Perception and Understanding Laboratory and the Process Automation Laboratory, which conducts research in information perception, knowledge representation, intelligent analysis, intelligent planning and decision-making, etc. The Joint Laboratory of Sinovation Ventures and HKUST provides scientific research support.

Finally, the Innovation Works Greater Bay Area Research Institute team is also recruiting talents in computer vision, natural language processing, knowledge graph, machine learning, cloud/mobile applications and solutions, consulting and business.