iFLYTEK invested 1.024 billion yuan in the AI ​​ecosystem, and Hu Yu himself responded as follows

October was a bit turbulent for iFLYTEK.

First, in mid-October, the company released its third quarter financial report for 2017. Its impressive revenue of RMB 1.284 billion and year-on-year growth of 89.11% attracted much attention from the industry. Four days later, iFLYTEK did something to "pamper developers" at its headquarters - it released the 1024 AI Ecosystem Plan and allocated RMB 1.024 billion for the ecological support fund.

At the meeting, Hu Yu, executive president of iFLYTEK and president of the Consumer BG, announced a series of data. Currently, the cumulative number of terminals on iFLYTEK's open platform has reached 1.2 billion, with an average daily interaction of 4 billion. The number of developer teams connected has reached 460,000, an increase of 127% from 202,000 in the same period last year, accounting for 64.2% of AI industry developers.

Hu Yu said, "We are doing one thing, which is to innovate the core technology system at the source, and at the same time, work with thousands of developers to find a place where AI can be integrated with the industry and consumer business. This is also the main way of thinking of iFlytek in the developer ecosystem."

Leifeng.com Note: Hu Yu, Executive President of iFLYTEK and President of Consumer BG

According to Hu Yu's on-site introduction, the plan consists of three parts: AI ecological plan, AI teaching plan and AI public welfare plan.

Let’s first look at the AI ​​ecosystem plan , which specifically includes the following three points:

• AI Ecosystem Salon

  Six offline salon events are held in six cities across the country every year. Every two months, product managers and technical experts from iFlytek Development Space will share their technologies, solutions and cases in light of the city’s characteristics and developers’ demands.

• AI Maker Space

  It is understood that iFlytek has built and operated four iFlytek AI entrepreneurship and innovation bases in Changchun, Luoyang, Hefei and Chongqing across the country, and is planning to build bases in Beijing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Nanchang. At the same time, it is also connecting with 14 cities including Nanjing, Suzhou, Fuzhou, Hangzhou, Xiongan, Haikou and Guangzhou.

• AI Diamond Team

  Developers who have access to the iFlytek open platform can apply to join. Diamond teams can receive support from iFlytek from technology to operations, as well as capital, resources and training. To this end, iFlytek has also set up an ecological support fund of 1.024 billion.

In the AI ​​teaching plan , Hu Yu introduced that among the 460,000 developers, about 1/3 are individual developers and college students, who are distributed in more than 1,000 universities at home and abroad. In view of this, iFlytek established an AI university and established a school-enterprise cooperation plan with more than 100 universities at home and abroad to provide these developers with online AI courses, interactive forums, case sharing and other comprehensive teaching support.

The AI ​​public welfare plan is more reflected in the "Dialect Protection Plan" of iFlytek Input Method. It is understood that iFlytek Input Method has launched a platform for "all people to complete dialects" for this purpose. Users only need to speak their hometown dialect on the special page, and the system will automatically record the corpus. Not surprisingly, the dialect corpus will help further enrich the dialect of our country.

In fact, as we can see, both the domestic BAT and the five major technology giants abroad (Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook) are slowly building their own ecological platforms. So, in this case, how does iFlytek, which claims to be an innovative entrepreneur, balance the conflict between its own development platform and the platforms established by other companies?

In this regard, Hu Yu told Leifeng.com that although Tencent and Alibaba both have their own developer platforms, each developer platform has different perspectives. Moreover, each developer will not register on only one development platform. Therefore, each platform brings different technologies, feelings and cultural atmosphere to developers. From the nature of developers, it is difficult for individuals to do systematic and core technical system innovation content, which all depends on large-scale organizations and structures.

At the same time, Leifeng.com learned on the spot that in the AI ​​makerspace, iFlytek has cooperated with AA Accelerator. Different from the general makerspace and incubator, the combination of the two is more like a complement.

Wu Lingwei, founder and CEO of AA Accelerator, told the media that iFlytek mainly provides developers with assistance in the industrialization of core technologies, while AA Accelerator is responsible for helping entrepreneurs identify user needs and business points, establish good entrepreneurial partnerships and provide professional financing. In Hu Yu's view, compared with general entrepreneurial platforms, iFlytek's AI makerspace has a lower technical threshold and can integrate iFlytek's core technologies more quickly; secondly, it can also better meet the investment needs of entrepreneurial teams.

So, what are the requirements or screening criteria for iFlytek, which has invested 1.024 billion yuan in this project, in selecting entrepreneurs? Hu Yu said that iFlytek prefers to invest in two types of companies:

• One is developers or entrepreneurial teams that have core technologies but are not good at industrialization.

• Another type is a team that lacks core technology but has its own ideas on how to commercialize. For such teams, iFLYTEK can provide them with AI technology to solve practical application problems.

On the day before the 1024 Developers' Day, Leifeng.com (official account: Leifeng.com) and other media visited the laboratory of iFlytek's headquarters in Hefei. According to the on-site staff of iFlytek, iFlytek currently has three major BGs: consumer, education and smart city, as well as two major business divisions: flat embedded and public security. According to Hu Yu, iFlytek also has two BUs, one of which is the newly established medical BU, which may develop into a BG in the future, and the other is a BU related to public security, procuratorial and judicial business.

Among them, education is one of the three major BGs, which is enough to show its high status in iFlytek. According to an external data of iFlytek, its teaching products developed in the field of AI education have covered 10,000 schools and 80 million teachers and students across the country. Especially with the development of technologies such as speech processing, machine marking, and machine translation, iFlytek is undoubtedly the leading enterprise in domestic AI education.

On the other hand, iFLYTEK has also been deeply involved in the field of AI medical care for a long time. Whether in theoretical research or practical application, the company is constantly breaking records. For example, the first AI smart hospital established in Anhui this year, the machine surpassed ordinary doctors in tertiary hospitals in the imaging diagnosis of lung diseases, with an accuracy rate of more than 94%; shortly afterwards, it also won the first place in the world in the international authoritative medical imaging competition LUNA.

In addition, iFlytek has also made many plans and achievements in highly professional fields such as consumer applications and security inspection. In particular, this massive AI ecological plan, 460,000 developers, 1.024 billion ecological funds... are enough to push iFlytek to the commanding heights of industry attention. However, this company, which is the same age as Alibaba, was too low-key in publicity in the early and middle stages, which inevitably made the outside world have the impression that it "developed very fast", "suddenly rose", and "has a complex business". Some people even asked, "What else does iFlytek not do?"

When Hu Yu heard this question during the on-site media interview, he smiled. He said:

In this regard, I would like to elaborate on two points. First, from a technical perspective, iFlytek's goal has not changed - to use voice and language as an entry point to make a cognitive revolution in the entire AI; second, from an industry perspective, iFlytek will strictly adhere to its own technical and business genes, but its coverage will still keep up with the forefront of AI. Therefore, from iFlytek's perspective, what we need to do is to help the industry reduce the difficulty of AI applications.

As for why so many industry applications are developed, Hu Yu said, "These are all selected industry tracks that are believed to be where AI can play a big role in the future. At present, most people don't know how to make the best combination of AI applications in these directions, and this is where we have an opportunity."

If I must describe iFlytek in four words, the reporter of Leifeng.com would think of the word "accumulation of experience". In the past 18 years, iFlytek's investment in R&D and research has always accounted for about 20% of its sales revenue. I believe everyone has their own opinion on what this data means.

Even now, in Hu Yu's eyes, iFLYTEK is still a developer or innovative entrepreneur. "We don't see ourselves as a big company," Hu Yu said, "because only when you are on the road can you appreciate the best scenery."

Is this 1024 AI Ecosystem Plan just a fuss or just a glitz? Let's give this "developer" some time.