Shulou(Shulou.com)12/24 Report--

Digital technology represented by artificial intelligence is opening a new round of global technology wave, new track brings new opportunities, new things will also have new challenges. What are the trends of technological development, how to balance development and governance, and how to view the role of large enterprises in promoting technological progress? Experts and scholars from various fields looked forward to and exchanged views on these issues at the "Foreseeing the Future·Frontier Science and Technology Forum" held recently.

Experts at the meeting believe that the new generation of digital technology will empower thousands of industries and keep up with the trend so as not to lag behind in the future scientific and technological competition. Large enterprises can do large research and development and have their own unique advantages in promoting technological progress. They should be encouraged to develop and strive to cultivate more large scientific and technological enterprises that are competitive in the international market.

Technological progress will not slow down, seize the opportunity of the new generation of digital technology development

Humanoid robots have more powerful perception ability, can complete more complex movements, realize more dexterous manipulation, artificial intelligence technology accelerates the evolution of robot "brain" and "hand"; There will be more real interaction between digital and physical worlds. The digital interaction engine used to efficiently construct virtual world in game industry will be used in more diverse fields such as industry and automobile, and the application of digital twins in all walks of life will become more real-time; Large models have more application scenarios, complete complex tasks with simple natural language, artificial intelligence can help scientific research and development process...

The "singularity" of technology is no longer far away, and the progress of digital technology is bringing a revolution to thousands of industries. The report "2024 Digital Science and Technology Frontier Application Trend" produced by Tencent Research Institute in conjunction with more than 100 internal and external scientists and technical experts predicts the future development trend and application prospect of digital science and technology. More and more digital science and technology applications are enough to bring great changes to the global economy and people's daily life. A new generation of digital technology represented by artificial intelligence will lead a new round of technological development and industrial reshaping.

A year ago, Chat GPT was born, and digital technology represented by artificial intelligence once again made revolutionary technological progress. To deal with new things, on the one hand, we see the great value and application prospect of technology, realize that China is still far from the world's top level in the field of digital science and technology, and there is a risk of being "stuck" if we do not master the core technology in the software field such as artificial intelligence; on the other hand, technological innovation produces many gaps in experience, and it is urgent to formulate standards and standardize the application of technology.

▲ Fan Gang spoke at the forum: "The speed of technological progress will never slow down. "Fan Gang, president of China (Shenzhen) Comprehensive Development Research Institute, judged this at the forum. New digital technology is both a great opportunity and a challenge to the development of science and technology, economy and even the whole society. The speed of technological research will not slow down, and the speed of technological progress will not slow down. What we need to do now is to pay close attention to research.

Digital technology is accelerating at an ever-changing pace, and only by working hard to lay out the cutting edge and conquer key technologies can we seize the lead in this new track that can affect all walks of life. In Fan Gang's view, some applications can be restricted, but science must develop, and in the field of artificial intelligence we need to think about how to catch up. In addition, only when you are at the forefront of research can you move to the forefront in formulating standards and norms and become a rule-maker.

To participate in international competition and actively embrace supervision, new technologies should balance the relationship between development and governance, and the seemingly contradictory two are not actually opposite. Fan Gang believes that enterprises, especially large enterprises, should be encouraged to participate in international competition and eventually grow into large international enterprises. Embracing regulation means advising on future risks and being able to establish systems early. Appropriate and timely regulation can lead to healthier technology and industry development, and innovators can get better returns in the long run.

Digital technology will reshape all aspects of the future to see the application landing

Wang Qiang, director of the Frontier Science and Technology Research Center of Tencent Research Institute, believes that these four trends are the general direction of digital science and technology development. Quantum computing may change the direction of future computing power, which is worth focusing on; artificial intelligence and robots are closely integrated, large model technology is applied to scientific research and development; immersive media is more real, digital interaction develops from online to presence; satellite-to-ground direct communication, future energy network and future transportation network are technological development trends...

As an industry expert who has paid close attention to artificial intelligence technology for a long time, Wang Qiang said that after entering the threshold of general artificial intelligence, AI is expected to become a general-purpose technology, and then become a new productivity, bringing great influence to the global economy and society in all directions. From this article to more dimensions such as images, audio and video, multi-modality will promote the application breadth of AI, the development of artificial intelligence will greatly expand the application depth, the contribution of generative AI to scientific research will become increasingly obvious, and the alignment of AI and human value will also become one of the important competitiveness of large models.

At present, domestic enterprises are optimistic about the development prospect of artificial intelligence, investing resources in new tracks and grasping innovation. Since the beginning of this year, domestic large models have presented a scene of competition, among which many enterprises emphasize R & D from zero and master key core technologies, which is a positive manifestation of the vitality of China's digital science and technology ecology and the importance attached by digital science and technology enterprises to innovation in keeping with the world trend. At the same time, some people question whether duplication of research is a waste of resources.

According to Wan Jinbo, a researcher of the Institute of Science and Technology Strategic Consulting of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, under the background of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial reform, cutting-edge scientific innovation has become a new focus. Governments and enterprises of all countries are deploying new fields and new tracks in the future, and increasing investment in cutting-edge scientific innovation is an inevitable choice. After moderate market competition, only a few high-quality products, services and enterprises can survive. Different enterprises should give full play to their own characteristics, advantages and specialties, display their abilities, innovate pragmatically, and jointly promote the development and application of cutting-edge technologies. The development of large models is a protracted war, and there will be survival of the fittest. In the second half, the competition is system capability, application scenario and industrial ecology.

Wan Jinbo said that the focus of innovation and development of large models lies in innovative ecological construction and industrial demonstration applications, including the application of government affairs, finance, medical treatment, manufacturing industry and other industries. For example, Huawei Pangu government affairs model landed in Futian, Shenzhen, Tencent has "super city brain" in Changsha, and China Southern Power Grid has developed independent and controllable power model. Head platform enterprises give full play to digital enabling advantages, industry leading enterprises open application scenarios, cooperate with universities and institutions to jointly carry out cutting-edge technology research and development, promote the accelerated application of intelligence + in thousands of industries, accelerate the formation of new quality productivity and advanced productivity, and shape new kinetic energy and advantages of innovation and development.

Lu Chunjiang, director of the big data platform research department of Shenzhen National High-tech Industry Innovation Center, pointed out that computing power, data and large models are the "infrastructure" in the future. Industry applications need to solve the problem of "infrastructure," combine industry knowledge with large industry models, and create an independent and controllable ecology.

Large enterprises do big research and give full play to their unique advantages in scientific and technological innovation

The development of technology cannot be separated from a large amount of scientific research investment. The characteristics of high cost, high risk and long cycle are especially obvious in the research and development of digital science and technology. Moreover, the current scientific and technological innovation not only needs to realize the breakthrough of "from nothing," but also needs to answer a series of application questions such as cost, commercialization and market. It is the unique advantage of large enterprises in scientific and technological innovation to not only allow appropriate failure in innovation, adhere to long-term continuous investment, but also have rich market application practice and know how to transform scientific and technological achievements.

"We want to develop big enterprises and have big enterprises to lead big research. "Fan Gang said. He believes that there is nothing wrong with attaching importance to small and medium-sized enterprises, but only large enterprises have more funds and energy to do more comprehensive research, and can continue to do systematic and multi-directional research in one field. Innovation has great risks, and only large enterprises can continue to invest and follow up, and can continuously create and do more risky R & D. In addition, research by large enterprises can also lead to research by small enterprises.

Fan Gang believes that without large enterprises, we have no say in the international market and international scientific and technological development. Facing the general trend of rapid scientific and technological progress, we must attach importance to the development of large enterprises. We should realize that the current competition is not domestic competition, but international and international market competition, especially in the new round of scientific and technological competition and technological innovation, the role of large enterprises is once again prominent.

According to the data of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, Huawei, Tencent and Alibaba invested the most in R & D among Chinese private enterprises in 2022, accounting for nearly 7% of the total R & D expenditure of the whole country. In the global enterprise ranking, the R & D investment of the three companies is ranked in the top 20. These leading enterprises in the field of digital technology have their own exploration layout and planning in cutting-edge technology. For example, Tencent started research and development of large model training and reasoning as early as 2018, with laboratories focusing on quantum computing and research on next-generation robots.

Large enterprises can do big research and promote the continuous development of digital science and technology, which requires large enterprises to play a leading role. Huawei has ranked first in the number of patents in the field of 5G for many consecutive years, with the largest number of key core technology patents; Tencent has applied for more than 66,000 patents, second only to Google in the global Internet industry, with more than 10,000 artificial intelligence patents; Huawei, Tencent and Ali, as cloud service providers, actively embrace the sea, face the competition with Google, Microsoft, Amazon and other cloud giants in overseas markets, give full play to their respective advantageous fields, and continuously increase their market share... Mastering key core technologies and moving towards international competition requires the contribution of large enterprises.

Liu Weishu, a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Southern University of Science and Technology, said that the state should encourage more enterprises to grow and grow to compete on the world stage so that enterprises can integrate more technologies. Another identity of Liu Weishu is the winner of the first "Science Exploration Award." He said Tencent's "Science Exploration Award" and "New Cornerstone Researcher Program" aim to encourage scientists to conduct original exploration and basic research, which is a good practice for Chinese head companies to provide funds in another way to support original exploration in all walks of life.

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