In the blink of an eye, 2020 is nearing the end. This year, there are many changes, but also many unchanging beliefs and perseverance. on December 30, Baidu released "Baidu AI 2020", a 10,000-word article to review and summarize the past year. CTO Wang Haifeng summarized the three major features of Baidu AI in 2020: continue to explore the frontiers of science and technology, to build a new type of infrastructure for AI, and to accelerate the integration of cloud and wisdom to accelerate the industrialization of intelligence.
Wang Haifeng said: "The world's 2020 is a year of change full of uncertainty; China's 2020 is a year of unity, **** overcome the difficulties, and open a new situation in the change of hope; Baidu AI's 2020 is a year of firm belief, embrace change, and practice "technology for the better. "The year of practical work.
Looking back to 2020, in the fight against the epidemic, Baidu AI first contributed to the temperature and power of science and technology to fight the epidemic and protect the safety of life; in the resumption of work and production and high-quality development, Baidu AI is the new kinetic energy that promotes innovation and builds a new pattern; in our work and life, Baidu AI is in every piece of information and knowledge you search for, in the dinging sound of the map navigation, in the simultaneous transmission of the international conference, in the subtitles, in the factory unmanned quality control. subtitles, on the unmanned quality inspection equipment in factories, and on the continuously expanding mileage of self-driving cabs ...... Baidu AI is in every corner around us, making our work more efficient and our lives more convenient.
2020, Baidu AI's year of practical work to continue their own characteristics of the road: continuous innovation breakthroughs, exploring the frontiers of science and technology; independent and controllable, open-source and open, consolidate the soft and hard one AI big production platform, to create a new infrastructure of AI; cloud and wisdom one, enable the industry, enabling the ecosystem, and accelerate the industrialization of intelligence."
Some key figures can be seen in Baidu's AI achievements: in CVPR, ACL, ECCV, NeurIPS, INTERSPEECH and other world's top AI academic conferences and authoritative competitions, Baidu AI has won more than 30 championships, with more than 260 papers included, which continues to demonstrate the strength of AI technology leadership; in terms of the number of AI patents applied for and granted, Baidu has won 9364 patents, which is the largest number of patents in the world, and the largest number of patents granted. In terms of AI patent applications and authorizations, Baidu is in the first place in China with 9,364 patent applications and 2,682 patent authorizations; this year, Baidu was once again selected as one of MIT Technology Review's "50 Smartest Companies"; up to now, Baidu*** has won more than 100 awards issued by government, industry associations, the media and other organizations, for example The SAIL Award, the highest award at the 2020 World Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
In addition to these most direct figures, "Baidu AI's 2020" also comprehensively shows its progress and achievements in all aspects of AI emerging infrastructure, industrial intelligence, AI service society and talent training.
AI Emerging Infrastructure
In 2020, four silhouettes of Baidu's AI depict the entry of AI into industrialized mass production as solid AI infrastructure.
The first silhouette, Baidu Brain 6.0 outlines the core technology of independent innovation. 2020, Baidu Brain core technology breakthroughs "knowledge-enhanced cross-modal deep semantic understanding", to understand the complexity of the real world scene. On the other hand, Baidu brain "software and hardware integrated AI production platform" upgraded to AI new infrastructure, more efficiently support AI industrialized production, help industrial intelligent development speed.
The second silhouette, Baidu Flying Paddle continuous innovation, prosperous open source ecological support for industrial development. Flying paddle open source framework V2.0RC version, bring "programming consistency, static and dynamic unity" of the new development experience, hardware ecological partners reached 20, adapted or being adapted to the chip / IP model 29, to provide a solid base of independent and controllable, to accelerate the construction of the AI industry ecosystem. Flying Paddle has gathered more than 2.65 million developers, trained 340,000 models, and served 100,000 companies.
The third silhouette, the future blueprint depicted by cutting-edge technology. Baidu released Quantum Leaf, the first cloud-native quantum computing platform in China, which provides quantum development kits such as QCompute, shortens the whole life cycle of quantum programming, and realizes the closed loop of quantum tool chain. Baidu Superchain owns 425 technology patents such as in-chain parallel technology and three-dimensional network, realizes industry-leading network performance of 87,000 TPS for a single chain, and donates to the Open Atom Open Source Foundation as the first project in China. Baidu's artificial intelligence is also combined with biological computing and virus research. Baidu has open-sourced Linearfold, a linear time algorithm, which can shorten the prediction of the secondary structure of the whole genome of this virus from 55 minutes to 27 seconds, a speed-up of 120 times. In addition, Baidu launched the world's first mRNA vaccine gene sequence design algorithm LinearDesign, which can greatly improve the stability of the vaccine design and protein expression level in 16 minutes, thus effectively solving the most important stability problem in the development of mRNA vaccines, accelerating the speed of vaccine development.
The fourth silhouette, cloud computing paved the smart economy "highway". In addition, the hybrid/proprietary cloud platform ABC Stack all supports localized servers and operating systems, and ABC Stack Industry Edition and Enterprise Edition focuses on supporting Baidu's self-developed Kunlun AI chip, realizing a truly localized intelligent cloud.
The four silhouettes overlap, and Baidu's new AI infrastructure map is becoming clearer. Baidu is relying on the new AI infrastructure, including the Baidu brain, flying paddle, intelligent cloud, data center, etc., to promote intelligent transportation, intelligent city, intelligent finance, intelligent energy, intelligent medical care, industrial Internet and intelligent manufacturing and other fields to realize the intelligent upgrading of industry.
AI Describing the "intelligence of everything", industrial intelligence is more surging
The new coronary heart disease epidemic has brought a huge impact on the global economy, and also made all walks of life realize the important value of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. The first time I saw this is when I was in the middle of the night, and I was in the middle of the night. Baidu AI on the one hand, through the search, map, input method, Xiaodu, Apollo and other products and platforms to serve the public, so that life is simpler and more convenient; on the other hand, through the Baidu AI to B an important carrier and exporter - Baidu Intelligent Cloud, for the various sectors of the large-scale delivery of Baidu's AI technology achievements and platform capabilities, the The Baidu SmartCloud will support the intelligent upgrading of industries and accelerate the arrival of the smart economy.
Baidu AI helps Continuously optimize the search experience to better connect information and services. Baidu mobile ecosystem is China's leading mobile ecosystem centered on information and knowledge, and with the support of AI technology, the three pillars of Baike, intelligent small programs, and hosted pages have rapidly developed into the leading content and service access platform in China. Based on natural language processing, knowledge mapping, voice, vision, deep learning and other AI technology capabilities, Baidu search is also continuing to be intelligent.
The new generation of AI maps - Baidu Maps makes traveling easier. In 2020, Baidu Maps upgraded its travel services by sticking to its AI strengths and innovative capabilities, and has become the authoritative travel platform trusted by the nation by launching the familiar road navigation mode, lane-level navigation function, AI indoor pass and traffic light countdown. At present, Baidu map more than 90% of the data production link to achieve AI, panoramic map coverage of more than 95% of the country's cities, covering more than 3 million kilometers; voice interaction scene has also achieved rapid growth, Baidu map intelligent voice assistant user volume has exceeded 400 million.
Baidu Maps AI Indoor Pass
AI Comprehensively empowered by the input method, the market share and the number of active users jumped to the forefront of the industry.
Baidu Input Method market share and monthly active users increased rapidly, the current monthly activity exceeded 600 million; a number of AI features to achieve major industry breakthroughs, including voice input capabilities continue to break through, and become the industry's first daily average voice request volume exceeded the 1 billion times the mark of the input method products, voice recognition accuracy rate of 98.6%, and at the same time, to achieve the upgrading of the offline Chinese and English free to say breakthroughs, Baidu input method. Baidu Input Method has become the third-party cell phone input method with the highest penetration rate of voice input; handwriting input continues to be upgraded, and the accuracy of handwriting recognition has increased to 96%.
Xiaodu breaks the circle and widens the application boundary of intelligent assistants. Xiaodu this year released Xiaodu intelligent speaker 2 infrared version equipped with Baidu Hongqiao chip, focusing on online children's education Xiaodu education intelligent screen and Xiaodu intelligent early childhood education machine, as well as ultra-cost-effective intelligent screen entry-level products Xiaodu intelligent screen Air, the first new product of the accompanying scene Xiaodu true wireless intelligent headset and meet the more diversified needs of each member of the family segmented Xiaodu intelligent screen X10, which allows Xiaodu in more scenes and in more areas. This allows Xiaodu to realize the "broken circle" in more scenes and crowds, accelerating the market popularity of AI hardware and broadening the application boundaries of intelligent assistants.
Apollo Autonomous driving more than ten China's first, technical strength leading the industry. Baidu Apollo constantly refreshes the "high degree of difficulty" in the field of intelligent travel. In the "all things intelligent - Baidu World 2020" conference, Baidu completed the world's first full unmanned live, that is, the artificial intelligence system in the absence of the car safety driver in the case of independent driving. Baidu has opened Apollo Go self-driving travel services in Changsha, Cangzhou and Beijing. Apollo Xiaodu Car, an intelligent car-link product, has entered millions of intelligent cars. Baidu has released the first full-stack intelligent transportation solution "ACE Traffic Engine" that integrates vehicles, roads, and lines at home and abroad, and is rooted in China's new intelligent transportation infrastructure, and has received orders from nearly 20 cities for new intelligent transportation infrastructure.
The Baidu Intelligent Cloud accelerates industrial intelligence. 2020 in the epidemic, the global economic situation changes in the context of scientific and technological innovation to promote industrial development, to enhance the effectiveness of economic quality and core competitiveness has become the key. Baidu Intelligent Cloud integration of cloud computing, Baidu brain, big data and other Baidu core technologies, released "cloud computing as the foundation, AI as a grip, focus on the important track" of the new strategy to promote the development of industrial intelligence, to become a new infrastructure tide to accelerate the AI industrialization of large-scale production of the key forces.
Baidu smart city solutions have been in Beijing Haidian, Chongqing, Chengdu, Suzhou, Ningbo, Lijiang and other 10 + provinces and cities landing application; smart financial services nearly 200 financial customers, built more than 30 partner ecology, among the first camp in China's financial cloud solutions; Baidu smart health care "spirit doctor Zhi Hui" has served more than 300 hospitals. "has served more than 300 hospitals and 1,500 primary medical institutions, assisting tens of thousands of doctors, benefiting more than ten million patients; intelligent manufacturing covering 14 industries, more than 100 companies, more than 30 partners, reaching more than 50 types of vertical scenes, in 3C, automotive, steel, energy and other industries has been the scale of landing; Baidu smart energy has covered the power grid, power generation, Baidu Smart Energy has covered the power grid, power generation, new energy, clean energy, petroleum, chemical and other scenes, hand in hand with the State Grid, the South China Power Grid intelligent upgrading; released the enterprise intelligent application "Baidu RuLu", build AI era office assembly line, to create a new generation of intelligent work platform.
Serving society and cultivating talents
No winter is insurmountable, and no spring will not come. 2020, in the face of the sudden epidemic, Baidu AI was the first to join the fight against the epidemic. Baidu AI appeared in the CDC, helping to complete the whole genome sequencing of four case samples in Beijing in 10 hours; appeared in the subway high-speed rail and other public **** places, to solve the wearing of masks and hats under the circumstances of the temperature detection; appeared in the grass-roots follow-up call, intelligent outbound platform called out 1500 calls a second to assist in the scheduling and notification, so that the grass-roots prevention and control personnel have time to sit down and have a hot meal; AI diagnosis daily call nearly 10,000 times, robot war epidemic solution landed more than 30 hospitals, institutions, Baidu map migration big data platform, real-time road conditions platform for the national prevention and control of the deployment of reference, fever outpatient maps, epidemic district maps, nucleic acid testing institutions query and other functions from different angles to help anti-epidemic epidemic prevention and control of the epidemic is faster and more convenient.
Baidu adheres to the concept of "technology for the better" and practices the social responsibility of corporate citizenship. Baidu's AI technology was first used to find people, and by December 2020, Baidu's AI search has helped reunite nearly 12,000 families. Baidu AI continues to support cultural protection and animal protection, for example, Baidu and the International Fund for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (IFAW) have partnered to launch the world's first platform to combat the illegal trade in wildlife products using AI technology.
The rapid development of artificial intelligence and the wave of industrial intelligence have exacerbated the global shortage of AI talent. For colleges and universities, Baidu provides a full set of teaching resource packages, practical training platforms and 100 million yuan of arithmetic support, and builds a curriculum system with colleges and universities***; it has held 13 college teacher training courses, trained more than 1,800 AI teachers, and supported more than 200 colleges and universities to open AI credit classes. Not long ago, Baidu Flying Paddle's "Big Sailing" program was announced, of which the "Sailing" part is oriented to the training of AI talents in colleges and universities: in the next three years, Baidu Flying Paddle will invest a total of 500 million yuan worth of funds and resources to support 500 colleges and universities nationwide, with a focus on training 5000 AI teachers in colleges and universities. The company's first step is to provide the best possible service to its customers.
Facing the future
In 2020, the world landscape is constantly changing. As Baidu CTO Wang Haifeng said: "Based on the new development stage, with new ideas to build a new pattern, technological innovation is the key. Baidu AI of 2020, with the times *** forward."