AI development competition intensified in the US The difference felt by Japanese CEO was November 21 at 18:39

In the United States, AI = artificial intelligence startup companies are born one after another, and managers aiming to become “unicorn companies” with a market capitalization of over 1 billion dollars are struggling to develop every day. I interviewed in the official Silicon Valley about the differences between the US and Japan, where competition is getting more intense year by year. (International Department reporter Taichi Soga)

Unicorn born one after another

In the United States, startup companies with a market capitalization of more than $ 1 billion, so-called unicorns, are born one after another. In 2019, 64 companies, the largest ever, grew into unicorns.

Among the companies that have become unicorns so far, there are “Airbnb”, a private accommodation agency site, “Aurora”, which was launched by the former top of the technical department of Google ’s automated driving project, and the digital media “Vox”, which is a novel topic. "Media" etc. are listed.

Since 2010, AI is said to have experienced a third boom in history.

In addition to the dramatic improvement in machine learning and deep learning accuracy required for AI, the information processing speed of the computer itself has also increased at an accelerated pace, so many start-up companies are trying to innovate with AI.

Anyway many competitors

In order to cover the actual situation of the tough competition, I visited Mr. Shinpei Fujimaki of AI startup company “Dot Data”, which was established last year in Silicon Valley.

This company has developed a tool that automatically performs everything from arranging complicated and enormous data such as purchasing information and application usage history to forecasting based on it (sales forecast, usage forecast, etc.) using AI. .

Mr. Fujimaki is a data scientist from NEC and developed AI technology that is also attracting attention in the United States.

However, in the development within the company, because it was thought that it would lose time to decide the budget and internal adjustments, and lost the opportunity for excellent technology to enter the market, it was decided to become independent with the investment of NEC It was.

After setting up the company, Mr. Fujimaki will soon face a harsh reality.

In Silicon Valley, talented people from all over the world set up startup companies, so the eyes of customers were also strict.

"Anyway, there are so many start-up companies, so the customers themselves know and know well. Even if I gave a presentation, I heard that" I talked with others, but what are you different? " I will come. "

Mr. Fujimaki says that he felt it was difficult to promote his goodness among many competitors.

“Priced” human resource barrier

The turning point of the company was the report of the research company in May. Among them, it was listed as one of the world's top 3 startups related to machine learning automation. This led to an increase in job orders and an attempt to increase the number of staff to expand the scale of the business.

But here again hit the wall. Many companies were trying to incorporate AI into their business, competing for human resources, the number of data scientists and software engineers was significantly short, and salary levels were rising rapidly.

Actually, this was the most unexpected for Mr. Fujimaki, who himself had been invited by headhunting during the NEC era.

“You can't afford to pay for startups, but you need talented people, and if it costs around tens of millions of yen, you wo n’t be surprised at all, but big players like Google and Facebook offer“ unbelievable amount ”offers. The other day, when I interviewed a GAFA graduate, I asked for the amount of compensation I wanted, but it was over tens of millions of yen. I can't believe it. ''

Still, not only salaries, but also excellent human resources who want to work with empathy for company growth expectations and job satisfaction, the number of companies that started with 4 people has increased to 60.

There may be no company next year ...

Fujimaki's company has continued to grow steadily by raising $ 23 million (about 2.5 billion yen) from a major local financial institution last month.

“As technology continues to improve, even if we say,“ We ​​are the only ones that have been able to do so far, ”other people will be able to do it next year. I need to be able to do even more differently, because I need to collect and study information about competitors and I am very concerned about where they are now and what position they are. More competitive than Japan. ''

The number of competitors, the difficulty of securing human resources, and the speed of changes in market trends. At the end of the interview, I asked Mr. Fujimaki, who is in this environment, about the company five years later.

Then ...

Reporter "What will happen after 5 years?"

Mr. Fujimaki “When it comes to five years later ... I don't know for a long time because the trend changes every year. I think it will be an“ exit ”after five years. IPO = Initial public offering. I don't know if it will be acquired somewhere, but I think it would be great news. ''

I felt like I was witnessing the harshness of Silicon Valley, where the fate of the company was decided in a short period of a few years, just like a live horse.

Silicon Valley managers are always thinking about how innovations can impact society. And such innovations quickly spread across the world, like Google and Facebook.

I felt that Japan could be able to keep up with this wave of innovation or that it was in a very competitive environment.

International Department Reporter Taichi Soga Joined Sapporo Station in 2012, etc. Currently in charge of International Department, Germany and Europe and Southeast Asia