With the help of 5G, the next 10 years will be the "golden decade" of artificial intelligence
-Interview with Du Lan, senior vice president of iFlytek Co., Ltd.
Wisdom Eyes on 5G
Recently, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out at the first phase of the G20 summit that the epidemic has stimulated the vigorous rise of new technologies, new business formats, and new platforms such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and smart cities. The “contactless economy” has accelerated in an all-round way, providing economic development. New path.
Du Lan, senior vice president of HKUST Xunfei Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as HKUST Xunfei), agrees.
"This year's new crown pneumonia epidemic has made everyone truly feel that artificial intelligence is getting closer and closer to people's lives." She said, "There are also times when manpower is too busy, and there are some restrictions. At this time, machines can do a lot of manpower. Things that are out of reach, because of the emergence of specific scenarios, artificial intelligence plays a role. In the future, 5G and artificial intelligence will be ubiquitous like water and electricity in people’s lives."
But she also pointed out that on the new 5G track, it will take several years to wait from the accelerated landing to the gradual maturity and the realization of industrial applications. "It depends on the maturity of the technology."
Artificial intelligence usher in excellent development opportunities
During the epidemic, artificial intelligence showed strong capabilities in the medical field.
Wuhan completed a large-scale investigation of 9 million people in three days. The hero behind such a "hard-core" operation is indispensable for the iFLYTEK Intelligent Medical Assistant Telephone Robot.
It works tirelessly, making 100,000 calls an hour and forming a questionnaire in a minute or two.
The "New Coronary Pneumonia Imaging Aided Diagnosis Platform" can complete an auxiliary diagnosis of a new coronary pneumonia patient within 3 seconds, all positive cases are recalled, and the lesion recall rate reaches 90%.
"In a special period, artificial intelligence has played a key role, but the premise is that our products and technologies have been prepared." In Dulan's view, the development of artificial intelligence is such a process. At the beginning, it will not It feels like "sending charcoal in the snow", but once external factors catalyze this process and let everyone see the better life it brings, typical application scenarios will appear.
In the 5G era, Dulan is looking forward to it.
"As an infrastructure of communication, 5G has extremely high speed, extremely large capacity, and extremely low latency. These three characteristics will provide technical support for the realization of artificial intelligence in the future, bringing more imagination and space. Application scenarios.” She pointed out that under 4G, there are more interactions between “people” and “things”, while 5G’s interaction methods are no longer limited to “people” and “things”, but extend to “things”. Both "things" and "things" can be interconnected, thus forming new application models and innovations.
In the era of "Internet of Everything", intelligent voice is the most important entrance for people to achieve interaction.
"At present, artificial intelligence is applied to the C-side on the one hand, changing some of the lifestyles of individual consumers; on the other hand, changes in industry applications are slowly being accepted, such as intelligent vehicle information systems." Du Lan pointed out "In the era of non-intelligence, it is impossible to produce so many applications. Now with the 5G fast channel, many imaginations can become reality. With the help of 5G, artificial intelligence will usher in excellent development opportunities."
It will take time for 5G to realize industrial applications
"For 5G, it is indeed at the peak of the expected expansion period, because everyone has a lot of ideas about it. However, it will take time for this technology to mature and realize industrial applications." Having been in the artificial intelligence industry for many years, Duran observed From the early stage to the formation of the mainstream market in the future, it is necessary to bridge the gap. "In the era of artificial intelligence, many high-tech fields must rely on technological innovation, and any original technology, from research and development to final mass production at least 5 to 10 year".
Dulan specifically mentioned the importance of core source technology innovation.
"We emphasize'top the sky','top the sky' means to achieve the world's leading technology,'top' is the realization of large-scale industrialization through technology." Du Lan said that in the past 3 years, iFlytek has participated in or presided over the development Nine national standards have been issued, and the National Engineering Laboratory for Speech and Language Information Processing, the first batch of national new-generation artificial intelligence open innovation platforms, and my country’s first national key laboratory of cognitive intelligence have been established.
Not long ago, iFLYTEK and Pengcheng Laboratories reached a cooperation, and the two sides cooperated in building an intelligent voice language technology innovation platform and joint research on key technologies.
At the 2020 World 5G Conference, iFlytek will also sign a cooperation agreement with Pazhou Laboratory to further develop basic research and development in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
The maturity of technology is inseparable from the joint efforts and care of the industry.
"Our development strategy is'platform + track'. The platform is to open up core capabilities for developers to use, empower developers, and form the symbiosis and co-prosperity of the industry. It has been updated to 334 capabilities. Building such an industry Opening the ecology does not happen overnight, it will take at least 5-10 years.” Dulan said that in the development of the industry, companies themselves will also choose to enter important strategic tracks, such as education, medical care, and smart cities.
She also revealed that due to the rich applications and industrial clusters in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which has a prominent demonstration effect, iFLYTEK has deployed some basic, forward-looking and application-oriented R&D in Guangzhou.
New infrastructure brings new scenarios
This year the central government proposed a national strategy for new infrastructure. What are the development prospects and expectations of artificial intelligence under this strategy?
"In the three major parts of the new infrastructure, including information infrastructure construction, integrated infrastructure construction, and innovative infrastructure construction, we can see the presence of artificial intelligence." Du Lan said, "Why should the new infrastructure be'new'?" It’s new here. It’s not about building bridges and roads in the past, but building information infrastructure, 5G base stations, and artificial intelligence scenarios.”
She pointed out that new infrastructure is the basic guarantee of the digital economy and an important support for industrial transformation and upgrading.
5G, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing are actually the three technological bases of the digital economy. No matter which aspect of the future achieves a breakthrough, each other will promote each other and bring new business formats.
Recently, Duran has served as a judge for a number of entrepreneurial innovation competitions. “I have seen many projects and feel that everyone is still looking forward to the prospects of artificial intelligence.” “The country’s innovation environment is very good now, and capital boosts are also very powerful. Strong, with capital assistance, ideas, and technology, you can realize the development of the industry." Dulan is very optimistic about the future development of artificial intelligence.
"With the popularization of 5G, the interactive dialogue of all things with intelligent voice as the most important entrance will become more and more common and real. The next 10 years will be the "golden decade" of artificial intelligence." She said that artificial intelligence will It will obtain new developments in brain science and promote the era of human-machine coexistence.
Cognitive intelligence technology will continue to make breakthroughs, and industry applications will continue to be implemented, allowing machines to "understand and think". This will be the focus of future research.