My Age of Investment

"Darren, didn't Fuxing Industrial Group invest $1 billion to establish an AI laboratory in China? These two are top talents in the AI ​​field. You can ask them for more advice."

Xia Jingxing glanced at Yang Zhiyuan and knew that the other party was starting to cooperate. He immediately continued what the other party said: "Yes, today I have met the true god. I need to ask him for advice."

Li Feifei was very surprised when she heard the astronomical figure of US$1 billion: "Mr. Xia, have you invested so much money in AI research and development?"

"Not only AI, but also a cloud computing project. The US$1 billion is just this year's investment, and more will be added next year."

Li Feifei was speechless by Xia Jingxing's understatement. She thought that in order to build a database, she could negotiate with the crowdsourcing part-time workers on the Amazon platform to charge half the sky-high price for just a few cents to annotate a picture.

The other party spent US$1 billion on AI without batting an eyelid, and said it would invest more next year.

It's great to be an entrepreneur. You never have to worry about scientific research funding.

Ng Enda on the side suddenly interjected: "Darren, can you tell me the direction of your AI research? If it involves commercial secrets, forget it."

"What's inconvenient about this?"

Xia Jingxing smiled, then flexed his fingers and began to introduce each one, "Speech recognition is a new technology that we will apply to the Fuxing mobile phone next;

Image recognition, this is used on social networking and video websites to identify some prohibited pictures and videos;

The autonomous driving project is being prepared, but a suitable development leader has not been found..."

Yang Zhiyuan praised from the side: "Shen Xiangyang is now the person in charge of Fuxing Industrial AI, but there are too many scientific research projects under Fuxing Industrial for him to manage alone."

Xia Jingxing nodded heavily, "Yes, there are quite a lot of industries under Fuxing Industrial. From an industrial perspective, we very much need some AI research to go out of the laboratory and be applied in home appliances, mobile phones, cars, drones and other products, empowering The products have higher technological content.”

After hearing about the drone, Andrew Ng immediately asked: "The DJI Phantom 1 that appeared at the press conference that day was very interesting, and the design of integrated aerial photography is even more genius."

Jerry Yang smiled and said: "I remember a few years ago, you led the Stanford research team to develop the world's most advanced automatic control helicopter, right?"

Ng smiled and said modestly: "That happened a long time ago, and the project was not very commercialized, so I was so surprised when I saw the four-rotor integrated aerial photography drone. This is what we expect every day. Business and market thinking that people in the lab don’t have.”

Xia Jingxing smiled, "Thank you for your praise. The current technology of the DJI Phantom is not very perfect. Next, we plan to add functions such as automatic tracking and automatic obstacle avoidance. Computer vision, training algorithm models, etc. are needed behind this. technology."

Li Feifei and Ng Enda nodded, these are very practical AI implementations.

As expected of a technology entrepreneur, he is very forward-looking about the combination of technology and business.

While several people were chatting, Lu Qi suddenly came over with a middle-aged man in his forties.

"Darren, this is my senior fellow at Fudan University and your senior fellow at Stanford, Chen Zongjian. He is now the vice president at PASemi."

Xia Jingxing had some impressions of Chen Zongjian. He was one of the few Chinese executives at the Wisdom Fruit headquarters in his previous life. He was also the hidden master behind the Wisdom Fruit chips. He alone held sixty or seventy semiconductor patents.

"Senior Brother Chen, hello!"

Xia Jingxing smiled, shook hands with Chen Zongjian, and then introduced a few people around him to each other.

Lu Qi is very familiar with Ng Enda. Both graduated from Carnegie Mellon, a prestigious computer school founded by the Mellon Consortium.

Everyone else is pretty much the same, they all live in circles, they are either alumni or they have some mutual friends.

A few casual greetings brought us closer to each other.

Lu Qi pretended to be casual and said: "Darren, isn't Fuxing Semiconductor planning to enter the field of chip design? Zong Jian is an expert in this field.

He was the top scorer in the college entrance examination in Shanghai in 1984, and was selected by the Sino-US joint physics graduate program founded by Mr. Li Zhengdao to come to Stanford. He received a master's degree and a doctorate in electrical engineering and applied physics. After graduation, he followed the low-power processing industry Dopopper, a leading figure in the field of processors, has been in business for more than ten years and has a very profound knowledge in the field of processor design.

You can ask Zong Jian for advice, which will save you a lot of detours. "

Xia Jingxing said with a smile on his face: "Brother Chen, there are very few Chinese engineers engaged in processor design in the United States, let alone technical executives. Your professional ability is admirable."

Chen Zongjian was not good at talking and was introverted. Xia Jingxing's enthusiasm made him a little overwhelmed.

Fortunately, senior brother Lu Qi came to his rescue and said, "Dai Lun, Zong Jian prefers research work, so he is relatively quiet. Don't be surprised."

Xia Jingxing smiled and said: "How come? I like dealing with semiconductor experts the most. They are down-to-earth, sincere and frank."

"I heard that PASemi was acquired by Wisdom Fruit more than a month ago. Has Senior Brother Chen also joined Wisdom Fruit?"

Chen Zongjian forced a smile towards Xia Jingxing and said, "Not yet, I am planning to sign the employment agreement recently."

Xia Jingxing said with a smile: "I heard that the share exchange price of Zhizhiguo is not very generous. Brother Chen, as the entrepreneurial veterans of PASemi, I'm afraid you will suffer a lot."

Chen Zongjian's expression became a little unnatural because Xia Jingxing touched upon his sadness.

The reason why they, a group of entrepreneurial backbones, delayed signing the entry agreement was because they wanted to negotiate with Zhihuiguo again and come up with some entry conditions that were beneficial to them.

Especially his mentor and friend, the company's CEO Dopopper, who has been engaged in semiconductors for nearly 40 years and is considered a towering figure in the U.S. semiconductor industry.

The old man had a lot of resentment towards Wisdom Fruit and felt that the other party had used dirty means to embezzle his company.

However, the shareholders insisted on selling, and the old man, as the founder and CEO with a small shareholding, had nothing to do.

But the old man still wants to create some generous remuneration packages for his younger brothers who have followed him in starting a business for many years, so he has been leading them to negotiate with Wisdom Fruit recently.

Xia Jingxing observed his words and expressions and found that Chen Zongjian's face indeed had a look of dissatisfaction.

If you are dissatisfied with the wisdom fruit, it will be easy to handle! I'll pay double the price!

Xia Jingxing looked at Lu Qi, who winked at him lightly.

It seemed that Lu Qi understood what he meant. They could not let go of any opportunity that could weaken the Wisdom Fruit and strengthen themselves.

Xia Jingxing looked at Yang Zhiyuan again, who was currently talking to Ng Enda and Li Feifei.

Seeing Xia Jingxing glance over, Yang Zhiyuan nodded imperceptibly.

Seeing this, Xia Jingxing chuckled. Lao Yang was his other HR and he understood his mission very well.

Wu and Li must win over Fuxing Industrial and must not give it to Google, because that is an act of subsidizing the enemy.

After chatting for a while, Xia Jingxing excused himself to something and walked away with the wine.

Lin Bing, Zhou Guangping, and Li Zexiang came to his side and began to report their respective results.

"I just had a chat with Ms. Su Zifeng. She is now the chief technology officer of Freescale and may not look down on our small temple."

Lin Bing spread his hands and sounded a little disappointed.

Xia Jingxing took a broad view and smiled lightly, "Forget it if you don't come, and our platform may not be suitable for her."

Zhou Guangping then reported: "I just met Dai Weili, the younger sister of the three Dai brothers. She wants to cooperate with us and become a chip design supplier for Fuxing mobile phones."

Xia Jingxing's face was slightly stunned, but he quickly figured out the key.

The three Dai brothers and sisters are well-known in the industry. All three brothers and sisters graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and then all got together to start businesses in the chip field, and all of them made extraordinary achievements.

The eldest brother Dai Weimin founded Silue Technology in 1995 and later sold the company to Cadence Electronics, one of the three giants of EDA software, for US$135 million. In 2001, he returned to China and founded VeriSilicon in Shanghai, focusing on chips. IP can be regarded as filling the domestic technology gap, and later became the first domestic chip IP stock;

The company founded by the second brother Dai Weijin was first acquired by Kaideng Electronics for US$500 million. In 2007, he chose to start a second business and founded the GPUIP enterprise Tuxin, which mainly engaged in image processor IP licensing. In his previous life, HiSilicon launched The quad-core architecture processor "K3V2" uses Vivante's GPU IP. This company will also be acquired by VeriSilicon in the future;

The third sister, Dai Weili, and her Indonesian-Chinese husband, Zhou Xiuwen, founded Arvell Electronics, which was listed on Nasdaq in 2000. It mainly engaged in memory chip design, and its peak market value reached 60 to 70 billion US dollars.

According to statistics, the three brothers and sisters have built a total of 6 chip companies, two of which have gone public, three have been acquired, and one is in development. The success rate is simply outrageous.

Zhou Guangping continued: "Wumman Electronics started by designing storage chips, and at its peak it once occupied 60% of the global market share. In recent years, they have also taken a fancy to processor chips, and have now signed a contract to become the chip design partner of China Mobile's OMS plan. "

"OMS?" Xia Jingxing asked.

"Yes, it's the one you, Mr. Xia, talked about with China Mobile before. I heard that both Conscience Mobile and Hisense Mobile are interested in joining the OMS plan."

Xia Jingxing smiled faintly. It was just a reskinned operating system. Sooner or later, it would fail. However, Marvell Electronics could take this opportunity to enter the Chinese market.

He thought in his mind that if Fuxing Semiconductor could successfully acquire the businesses of the three Dai brothers and sisters, it would be able to fill in many of its shortcomings and greatly shorten its development time.

"Where is she?"

Zhou Guangping replied: "Let's go. She saw that you were too busy and said she would come visit you another day."

Xia Jingxing nodded lightly. If Fuxing Mobile wanted to fight against Wisdom Fruit, he might have to rely on the power of this company.

Li Zexianghui reported: "I had a chat with Mr. Yang Peidong, a tenured professor in the Department of Chemistry at Berkeley. He is a top expert in nanomaterials, but our company does not involve materials, so it is difficult to recruit him."

This person is a top expert in the field of nanomaterials. Xia Jingxing suddenly perked up, "Why don't we deal with materials? He is an expert in nanowire solar cells, right? Our Fuxing Industry has an energy business group, which matches his major. .”

Li Zexiang sneered, "The key is that we cannot provide a top-notch scientific research environment. Some scientists value this very much and want to win Nobel."

Xia Jingxing remained silent because Fuxing Industrial Group was currently unable to compare with the scientific research environment provided by the University of California, Berkeley.

However, Yang Peidong is indeed a very powerful scientist. The "artificial photosynthesis system" he led and developed is even helpful for humans to immigrate to Mars. This technology can use solar energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and acetate, simulating the living environment of the earth. .

Even if interstellar immigration is not possible, this technology can help solve problems such as energy shortages and global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions on Earth, and is very valuable.

"But if he stays in an American university, it may not be a good thing in the long run."

Xia Jingxing remembered something. In his previous life, Yang Peidong's doctoral supervisor Charles Li Bo, a foreign academician of Rabbit and the world's top nanomaterials scientist, was arrested and sentenced by Yingjiang for helping Rabbit University conduct scientific research.

In order to suppress Rabbit, Yingjiang has become so crazy that he even wants to do something to his own citizens and academics.

This incident frightened all the Yingjiang scientists, and they probably no longer dare to cooperate with Rabbit casually.

Professor Li Bo unfortunately became the chicken that killed the chicken to scare the monkeys.

As a disciple of Li Bo, Yang Peidong is also Chinese. He also returned to China to work for the Magic University of Science and Technology. He might follow in the footsteps of his teacher in the future.

Li Zexiang didn't understand Xia Jingxing's words and thought his boss meant that Chinese scientists would be suppressed if they stayed in the United States.

He smiled and said: "The choices made by individuals naturally have to bear the consequences. Good or bad has nothing to do with others."

If it weren't for Fuxing Industrial Group's serious lack of top scientists, Xia Jingxing wouldn't bother to care about other people's path choices.

Now he still hopes to recruit as many Chinese scientists from Silicon Valley as possible. Even if they are unwilling to return to China, as long as they can join the Silicon Valley laboratory of Fuxing Industry, they can extract a certain amount of value.