At the 2024 Inclusion Bund Conference, Wang Jian, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, delivered an important speech on AI, AI+ and AI infrastructure. He believes that AI+ is not a simple combination of AI and industry, but a trinity of data, models and computing power. Cloud computing is the infrastructure of the AI era. Academician Wang Jian deeply discussed the development process of artificial intelligence, pointed out that the emergence of Transformer is an important milestone in the industrialization process of artificial intelligence, and analyzed the technical logic and mechanism innovation behind applications such as ChatGPT.
The 2024Inclusion Bund Conference opened in Shanghai this morning. At the main forum of the opening ceremony, Wang Jian, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, director of Zhejiang Laboratory, and founder of Alibaba Cloud, shared his thoughts on AI, AI+ and AI infrastructure. He pointed out that AI+ is not a simple combination of AI and industry, but a combination of data, models and computing power. Cloud computing is the infrastructure of the AI era.
Wang Jian reviewed the development history of artificial intelligence. Although artificial intelligence has a long past, it only has a short history. Scientists such as Turing have been thinking a lot about artificial intelligence since the 1940s and 1950s. However, in 2017, Google proposed Transformer, which brought artificial intelligence back to everyone's field of vision and had an impact on the industry.
Wang Jian analyzed that from ChatGPT to AlphaFold to weather forecast, these are three applications with a very wide span. But there is one most basic thing behind them, which is Transformer. Artificial intelligence before 2017 was very different from the artificial intelligence we talk about today, so artificial intelligence only has a history of 7 years.
Wang Jian believes that if ChatGPT is based on the logic of artificial intelligence +, ChatGPT is not an application, but an application platform. If GPT is disassembled and turned into a basic model, in fact Chat is an application, so ChatGPT is GPT+Chat. Chat is not a simple application scenario. Everyone knows that when Microsoft cooperated with Open AI, they not only made Chat. In fact, they went to Bill Gates's house to discuss what scenarios things like GPT could be used in. In the end, only Chat was the most revolutionary, so it became a product. .
Wang Jian said that when we talk about the "+" of "artificial intelligence +", it is not about adding something, but how to add it. More importantly, it is a mechanism innovation. This innovation is the combination of data, models and computing power. When the scale of data, models, and computing power changes dramatically, something new must be introduced, which is AI infrastructure.
Wang Jian said that when it comes to infrastructure, it is the end of technological penetration. What technology will have the most long-term impact on mankind? It is when it becomes infrastructure. He quoted Sequoia Capital's view that in the cloud era, mobile era, and AI era, the infrastructure is cloud computing.
Wang Jian finally concluded: "When you look at AI, AI+, and AI infrastructure, you will find that in this world, not only technology is revolutionizing, but mechanisms are also revolutionizing, and infrastructure is also revolutionizing. There is no other revolution than these three revolutions. It couldn't be more exciting to happen at the same time. I think these revolutions are creating the future."
Academician Wang Jian's speech provides an important reference for us to understand the future development direction of artificial intelligence. He emphasized the importance of AI infrastructure and pointed out that the joint revolution of technology, mechanism and infrastructure will create the future, which points the way for the further development of the AI industry.