Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizens for the delivery of the trumpet of a salted fish! Following the big layoffs in April this year, the first Cambrian of AI chips was exposed to layoffs again.

Sina Technology learned exclusively that the layoffs take the smart driving chip business Xingge Technology as the "hardest hit area". According to a former employee of Xingge Technology, the company has laid off nearly half of its software, but only a small number of employees have been "cleaned up" in the hardware part, and the new project has been suspended and may be abandoned in the future.

The current Cambrian is under attack: on the one hand, it has lost more than 4.1 billion yuan over the past six years since it went public; on the other hand, a number of related companies have been included in the list, including smart driving chip business singing technology.

Does the smart driving chip business fail? In April this year, the Cambrian was exposed to layoffs.

On the social platform, a number of Cambrian employees posted that they were relieved of Cambrian violations, refused to give year-end bonuses, and did not agree to unilaterally terminate labor contracts. In response, Cambrian staff responded that the company's performance cashing according to the results of performance appraisal is not only a common and conventional management means, but also a management measure for the sustained and healthy development of enterprises. According to the results of the performance appraisal, it is not against the labor law to negotiate the termination of the labor contract and give Never1 the compensation. This statement indirectly acknowledges the layoffs.

In July, the Cambrian began a second wave of layoffs.

Cambrian Xingge (Nanjing) Technology Co., Ltd., a Cambrian subsidiary, has become the hardest hit, according to a person familiar with the matter. Cambrian Xingge (Nanjing) Technology Co., Ltd. has laid off staff in Nanjing, Shenzhen and other branches.

Cambrian Xingge (Nanjing) Technology Co., Ltd., namely Xingge Technology, was established in 2021, mainly engaged in the research and development of intelligent driving chips. During the 2021 World artificial Intelligence Conference, Cambrian Chairman Chen Tianshi officially announced the basic information about Xingsong intelligent driving chip, including computing power over 200TOPS, 7nm process, as well as independent safety island, mature software tool chain and so on.

At the beginning of its establishment, Xingge Technology won battle investments such as Weilai, SAIC and Ningde era, and won strategic investment from Lenovo and Bosch in 2022.

At the Chip theme Forum of the World artificial Intelligence Congress in 2022, Chairman Chen Tianshi revealed that Cambrian Xingsong is working on three autopilot chips, covering the L2-L4 level. The three chips under development are: MLU590 is a new generation of cloud AI training chip; SD5223 is L2 + autopilot integrated chip; SD5226 is L4 high-level autopilot multi-domain fusion platform SoC, using 7nm process technology, in line with advanced AI architecture to adapt to algorithm evolution.

However, singing technology, which was born with the Golden key, suffered a fatal blow at the end of 2022.

In December 2022, the U.S. Department of Commerce pulled the physical list, Cambrian and other chip semiconductor companies were banned. It is worth noting that a number of Cambrian subsidiaries were included in the list, including the newly established Xingsong Technology.

A software employee who has just left Xingsong Technology told Sina Technology that the software staff of Xingsong Technology has been laid off by about half, the new project has suddenly stopped, and it seems that it is only ready to maintain the old products. "the specific reason is not clear, probably because of sanctions."

Take the L4 high-level autopilot chip SD5226 planned by Cambrian Chairman Chen Tianshi as an example, which uses the 7nm process, and cannot be filmed at all under the ban of Xingge technology. Under such circumstances, the prospect of singing technology is worrying, and there is a good chance that it will be abandoned.

In fact, the challenge faced by the Cambrian is not only to ban it, but also to commercialize it.

In the early Cambrian period, the Cambrian took the terminal intelligent processor IP license as the main source of revenue, and took advantage of the big customer Huawei. But awkwardly, the cooperation between the two sides changed in 2019, when Huawei began to use its own NPU processor in its own chip.

Asked about the cooperation with Cambrian, Xu Zhijun, the rotating chairman of Huawei, once said, "Why should we build a new architecture to support AI chips? this is based on Huawei's understanding of AI and based on the demand for AI in Duanbian cloud. Cambrian is also very good, but can not support our whole scene."

After being abandoned by Huawei, the Cambrian also began to exert its efforts in the whole scene.

In addition to the IP authorized business, Cambrian successively launched cloud product lines, including cloud smart chips and accelerator cards and training machine products; edge product lines, including edge smart chips and accelerator cards; and intelligent computing cluster system business.

In the Cambrian 2022 financial report, the revenue from IP licensing and software business has shrunk to 1.1379 million yuan, down 83.44% from the previous year. Cloud product lines and intelligent computing cluster systems have become the main revenue support.

However, the revenue of the intelligent computing cluster system, the largest source of revenue in the Cambrian in 2022, increased by only 0.64% compared with the same period last year, and there is an urgent need to open source again in the Cambrian.

This is also the reason why the Cambrian cut into the automobile field through singing technology. In recent years, the automobile industry is moving towards electrification and intelligence, and the demand for smart chips is growing rapidly. Cambrian also hopes to get a piece of the pie.

However, the Cambrian may not be able to withstand the difficulties of business and the continued burning of money.

According to Sina Technology's query on the Cambrian Annual report, Xingge Technology had no revenue in 2021, with a net loss of 30 million yuan; similarly, there was no revenue in 2022, and the net loss expanded to 248 million yuan.

To make matters worse, the Cambrian itself did not get out of the quagmire of losses.

In 2022, the Cambrian realized an operating income of 729 million yuan, an increase of only 1.11% over the same period last year, and a net loss of 1.257 billion yuan, an increase of 430 million yuan over the net loss of 824 million yuan in the same period last year.

Cambrian explained that the increase in losses was mainly due to the continued increase in R & D investment in order to ensure the high-quality iteration of "Yunbian" chip products and basic system software platforms, and to maintain technological leadership in a highly competitive market. According to the financial report, the R & D investment in Cambrian 2022 was 1.523 billion yuan, more than double the operating income of that year, and increased by 34.11% compared with the same period last year.

Sina Science and Technology combed the Cambrian financial reports and found that R & D investment exceeded operating income all the year round, which also led to its net loss exceeding operating income in many years. Since 2017, the Cambrian has suffered losses for six consecutive years, with a cumulative loss of more than 4.1 billion yuan.

The challenges faced by the Cambrian as well as the intensification of competition in the industry.

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