After a few twists and turns, the fight for the first domestic AI stock has finally come to an end.On July 20, the SSE released the announcement of the results of the 48th deliberation meeting of the KCI board's upper committee in 2021, and Cloud from Science and Technology was approved to pass.
Looking around the world, under the iron curtain of Facebook, Google, Apple, Alibaba, Tencent, the wave of AI has not yet created a belly of the giant platform.
According to the process, after completing the next inquiry, roadshow, pricing, the cloud from the technology can be officially knocked from the bell listed, no accident, the cloud from the technology will become the first domestic completion of the independent listing of the artificial intelligence unicorn enterprises.
Because of the background of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and is the first company in the industry to participate in the construction of the three national platforms, the cloud from the science and technology by the industry crowned the title of "artificial intelligence national team". In the domestic "AI four dragons", the cloud from the science and technology was established the latest, but the earliest completion of the listing approval of the company, which is undoubtedly for the domestic AI industry is an effective centrifugal agent.
Previously, on July 2, one of the four little dragons, etu technology was terminated listing review, during which the reason for speculation.
However, the prospectus of the cloud from the technology also clearly shows that the company is currently facing losses. The cloud from the technology is not an example, the loss problem is also plagued by every enterprise in the industry, today's AI industry competition pattern, rather than competing who earn more, it is more than competing who lose less.
In 2006, Google acquired Youtube with an offer of $1.775 billion, and Chinese Internet startups seemed to see the way forward, flocking to the track of network video operations, but few people noticed that in this year, the total number of papers published in the field of AI in China surpassed the United States and jumped to the first place in the world.
Until ten years later, the State Council issued the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan", which listed artificial intelligence as a major project in the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan". Overnight, capital forces began to compete in the AI field, and the scale of financing for AI companies in China this year was equal to the sum of the total financing between 2000 and 2013.
In the eyes of investors, AI is bound to create a wave, and the AI industry is bound to give birth to technology giants like Google and Oracle.
If the birth of commercial Internet companies from the early 1990s, counting up to 2010, the widespread popularization of the Internet, the Internet industry ushered in the dividend period in 20 years. But the capital market can't wait 20 years, they are counting on the AI industry to realize the conversion of scientific research results in a short period of time, and get the return on investment.
The contradiction between investors and industry companies has exploded in 2019.
Public data shows that from 2014 to 2018, 126 exits occurred in China's artificial intelligence field***, the number of which is only 5% of the exits in the same period.
And in 2019, the number and amount of investments in the domestic artificial intelligence field have ushered in a precipitous fall. Only 30 financings were completed in the first half of the year, a year-on-year decline of 45.5%, and the total amount of financing amounted to 5 billion yuan, less than 40% of the same period last year.
Artificial intelligence industry is no longer the favorite of the capital market, the industry did not appear as expected Google-like giants, a large number of companies closed down, the rest of the company's development is also struggling, the artificial intelligence industry has entered the first winter.
After 2019's big wave, countless AI startups following the hot concept of bankruptcy, Internet giants have begun to withdraw their investment from the AI field, leaving only a few companies represented by the "AI four little dragons" to stick to the track with their own mastery of the core technology.
Seeing that they can't get help in the primary market, domestic AI companies have turned to the secondary market in the hope of getting financial help.
And so in 2020, a huge wave of AI companies went public.
The earliest action Kuangyi Technology, as early as August 2019, Kuangyi Technology began to seek listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, but then failed to complete the listing process because the United States was pulled into the "entity list".
Perhaps by the influence of Kuangyi Technology, domestic AI enterprises have begun to prepare for the Science and Technology Innovation Board.
In November 2020, the listing applications of Yun Zhisheng and Yitu Technology were accepted one after another. However, only three months later, Yun Zhisheng voluntarily withdrew its application for listing on the SGX-STB, and some sources believe that the reason for this incident is related to the suspected false disclosure of Yun Zhisheng's market share.
In July of this year, eto technology also announced the termination of the IPO, media reports eto technology is close to completing the third round of layoffs, the overall scale of layoffs more than 70%, and ultimately to cut to about 200-300 people.
The other AI company, Shangtang Technology, has not formally disclosed its IPO plan, but according to people familiar with the matter, Shangtang Technology is secretly carrying out a dual listing plan for A-share and Hong Kong stocks, but the progress is very slow.
In this context, the cloud from the technology almost carries the domestic AI unicorn enterprises successfully listed all the hope.
Compared with other companies, cloud from the science and technology of blood is relatively strong, for the application of technology landing, especially the construction of platform-type technology application is also more experienced.
Founded in 2015, the cloud from the science and technology, the earliest engaged in the field of face recognition, and gradually expanded to cross-border tracking, vehicle tracking, posture tracking, the establishment of the cloud from the beginning of the science and technology rely on their own best image recognition technology in the field of artificial intelligence to quickly open the market.
After achieving industry recognition in the field of image recognition, cloud from the technology began to banking, security and civil aviation and other industries to launch the layout, in the financial field, cloud from the financial institutions, including ICBC, CCB, Agricultural Bank of China, including more than 400 financial institutions and more than 100,000 bank outlets to provide intelligent services.
After the success of the industry segment, the cloud from the technology began to try to build platform applications. In the field of civil aviation to build the "flying phoenix platform", in the field of security to build a collection of regional security control, biometric identification, OCR recognition in the medical field of the "light boat platform.
Although the positioning of the application of artificial intelligence to make accurate judgments, but the cloud from the loss of science and technology has not been improved.
The prospectus of the cloud from science and technology shows that the revenue of the cloud from science and technology in 2017-2020 was 0.64 billion yuan, 448 million yuan, 807 million yuan, 755 million yuan; the net loss for the same period was 124 million yuan, 200 million yuan, and 1.736 billion yuan, 720 million yuan, and has not yet realized a profit.
This is not only a problem for cloud from technology, but also a problem that the global AI industry needs to face. The report published by An Hui, Secretary General of the Artificial Intelligence Industry Innovation Alliance, shows that nearly 90% of the global AI companies are still in a loss-making state, and more than 90% of the enterprises in the Chinese AI industry chain are also in the loss-making stage.
The reason for this is that the basic scientific research attributes of the AI industry are significant, and in this type of industry, in order to ensure that they continue to have core competitiveness, companies must invest in research and development funds at any cost, and in the case of cloud from the science and technology, for example, the research and development expenses of cloud from the science and technology in the 2018-2020 period were 150 million yuan, 450 million yuan, and 580 million yuan, which accounted for the proportion of revenue in the respective periods were as high as 30.61%, 56.25% and 76.59%.
In addition, in order to ensure the enthusiasm of research and development personnel, while absorbing fresh blood, such companies often do not spare any money on equity incentives, cloud from the science and technology in its prospectus, said that the huge loss in 2019 is mainly due to the payment of shares in the year up to 1.3 billion yuan.
Such a high level of investment makes the outside world think that the AI industry is difficult to achieve profitability, and even the SSE is skeptical.
In March this year, the cloud from the technology to accept a round of regulatory inquiries, including questions about sustained losses, the main products, sales model, core technology, and subsidies, etc., a number of AI companies are blocked in this link, and ultimately had to terminate the IPO.
Although the cloud from the science and technology is about to have a "domestic AI first shares" halo, but the AI industry is not the only one.
It is also worth noting that the cloud from the technology is also facing the Internet giants competing in the field of AI, traditional industry manufacturers transition AI and other competitive risks.
In March of this year, Baidu took advantage of the concept of "artificial intelligence" in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the second listing, raising funds amounted to 23.94 billion Hong Kong dollars, becoming the largest financing in the field of artificial intelligence in recent years. Baidu as the representative of the Internet giants in the resource advantage is self-evident, their participation will undoubtedly give the fierce market competition environment continue to increase.