Chapter 2861 First mover disadvantage

For people like Musk, we can’t use common sense.

Returning to his home in New York in the evening, Zhou Buqi immediately contacted Shen Xiangyang and told him that he must keep a close eye on his home. Every one of his artificial intelligence scientists was being watched, so don't be fooled. Sk dug a corner.

This kid is the kind of person who will do whatever it takes to succeed.

Musk has a very good personal relationship with Larry Page, but this guy is not merciful at all. He turned around and poached several core scientists from Google's intelligent driving team. This return shot may be able to Stab Larry Page to bleed.

Shen Xiangyang smiled and said, "Didn't you say that before?"

Zhou Buqi said: "Let me remind you, he has already taken action against Google."

Shen Xiangyang said relatively relaxedly: "Don't worry too much. The main reason why he was able to poach the core members from Google's smart driving team is that Google's smart driving business is a bit like a castle in the air. Tesla is different. It has mass production Electric vehicles are already on the market, and they have more room to display their ambitions. In comparison, we have an advantage over Google with the success of Rokid-go. The team is very excited and has formed a strong cohesion. Also, the technical directions are different. Although they are all artificial intelligence, Kezhidao is a big data graphics processing, and our direction is more about data simulation after deep learning. "

Speaking of Rokid-go, Zhou Buqi immediately remembered Musk's inexplicable apology, "By the way, Tesla has developed a new in-vehicle system, did you know?"

Shen Xiangyang said: "I know, it's been a long time, right?"

Zhou Buqi asked: "He said he regretted it and that he didn't accept my opinion. Do you know what this means?"

"ah?"

Shen Xiangyang was slightly startled.

Zhou Buqi said: "Didn't I say before that everything from mobile phones to tablets to smart watches, TVs, and electric cars can be important products in the future mobile device ecosystem. Musk didn't accept it, so he blamed himself. He said he made a mistake, which seems to be related to the route selection of the artificial intelligence CPU and GPU. "

"Oh!" Shen Xiangyang is an expert after all. He figured it out immediately and couldn't help laughing. "I thought he had some special plan. Maybe it was for the safety of the vehicle system. It turned out that he made a mistake!"

Zhou Buqi quickly asked: "What's going on?"

Shen Xiangyang said: "He is not targeting the vehicle system, but the vehicle CPU."

"Um?"

"In fact, it is an error in judgment of business direction caused by the choice of technical route. Autonomous driving requires huge AI computing power. In the past, the understanding in the industry was that artificial intelligence algorithms should be processed by the CPU. Now Rokid-go It was a great success and provided a new idea to the industry. Artificial intelligence should be done by GPU.”

"Um."

This is something Zhou Buqi has always been proud of. He has led the global artificial intelligence industry to correct its mistakes and embark on the right path.

Shen Xiangyang said: "Musk's previous understanding should be that the CPU handles the AI ​​algorithm. However, autonomous driving requires a lot of AI computing power, so the on-board CPU must have strong performance. The current CPU framework mainly There are two types. One is Intel's X86 architecture, which has strong performance, but generates a lot of heat and consumes a lot of power. It needs a fan to assist operation, so the X86 architecture chips are used in computers and servers. The other one is. The ARM architecture has weak performance, but generates less heat and consumes less power. It is now commonly used in mobile products, such as mobile phones, tablets, smart watches, and smart TVs. He treats cars as computers, not mobile phones. "

Zhou Buqi then figured it out, "So he developed a set of in-vehicle operating systems by himself in order to be able to use the more powerful X86 architecture chip?"

Shen Xiangyang said: "Yes, the AMD Ryzen chip currently used by Tesla has very powerful performance. You can even play 3A game masterpieces such as "Red Dead Redemption" on Tesla cars. Because the system and chip are supplementary."

Based on some of his foresight, Zhou Buqi finally understood what was going on. "So the simpler way is to develop a vehicle-mounted system based on the Android system with certain modifications. This kind of development cycle is faster." Shorter and lower maintenance costs.”

The current Tesla vehicle system is a self-developed operating system.

All the work needs to be done yourself.

This is troublesome.

Not only is it difficult to develop, but future updates, maintenance, and upgrades are also troublesome and costly.

If it is based on the Android system to make certain "magic modifications", it will be very easy. Not only is the development simple, but also subsequent updates, maintenance and upgrades, because of the existence of Google and the open source community, can be provided to Tesla for this set of In-car systems save a lot of money.

But here comes the most critical question.

Android is a mobile system, and it is adapted to mobile hardware, so it can only use Qualcomm chips with ARM architecture. Qualcomm's chips have the best performance among mobile phone chips, but when comparing performance horizontally with Intel chips and AMD chips based on the X86 architecture, the gap is huge, by several orders of magnitude. The processing power of Intel chips from ten years ago is also stronger than that of Qualcomm's latest flagship model.

Prior to this, Musk believed that future autonomous driving would need to rely on powerful CPUs to provide computing power, so it was impossible for him to choose Qualcomm chips.

You can only choose Intel chips or AMD chips with X86 architecture.

There is no way to make modifications based on the open source Android system. We can only develop a closed car OS system by ourselves.

But in fact, this was a huge error in judgment.

Because artificial intelligence does not require a CPU at all.

Even if the car system is equipped with an ARM architecture chip with poor mobile performance, it will not affect the future development of the car in the field of artificial intelligence. It only needs to be equipped with the best graphics card and the graphics card will do the calculations.

Shen Xiangyang knew that Boss Zhou didn't understand technology, so he wouldn't be as vague as Musk. He would help him explain further, and said with a smile: "Just like Apple's products, I think there are a lot of Apple fans now, aren't they all here?" Suggest to Apple that they should open up the ecosystem of Mac, iPad, and iPhone. Many people don’t understand why Apple has to develop two different operating systems for computers and mobile phones, and develop two different chips. The reason is here. One is based on the X86 architecture, and the other is based on the ARM architecture, which is difficult to integrate. If Apple wants to promote integration in the future, it will probably have to add some virtual machine functions to the Mac to integrate all the apps in the iPhone. Simulate the application on Mac."

Zhou Buqi said: "Yes, this is the biggest obstacle to self-developed systems. Even for Apple, the software ecosystem of the Mac system is very lacking. The isolation of this system makes it difficult for the Mac to use the huge and rich iPhone software ecosystem.”

Shen Xiangyang said: "Yes, the same is true for in-vehicle systems. Tesla's self-developed in-vehicle system is destined to have a very scarce software ecosystem. All applications need to be developed by themselves. In terms of intelligence, flexibility, and playability, The quality, richness and other aspects are much worse. Everything else is easy to say, but the best navigation products now must be mobile products. After all, Tesla wants to develop its own navigation software. It is difficult to compare with the first-class navigation products even if it is specialized. The navigation software is too professional and without a road-level team to update it at all times, there will definitely be discomfort at the application level. "

The same principle applies to smart TVs.

Today's Internet TVs are very powerful. You can watch live broadcasts and streaming videos on the TV. You can even play some mobile games and make video calls on the TV. The reason why this can be done is because today’s TV systems are actually Android systems.

This will be very friendly to software developers.

For example, if Netflix wants to develop a Netflix App for mobile phones, it must develop different models according to different mobile phones. Different mobile phones have different screen sizes, so certain screen scaling optimizations need to be performed, and some length, width, and height ratio values ​​must be adjusted.

By the way, with a few clicks, the TV version of Netflix App was brought up.

Because the systems are all the same.

No redevelopment is required.

The cost is very low, maintenance is easy, and it can be quickly deployed at the application level.

However, if a certain TV manufacturer makes the wrong choice, feels that its technical strength is very strong, thinks that it is invincible with the technology, and wants to develop a self-developed TV operating system... then it is basically over. He was in a state of waiting to die.

Because this is too unfriendly to developers.

They don't have that much manpower, material and financial resources to develop a new software for a new operating system.

Even a company as powerful as Apple, not even Steve Jobs, who looked up to the top of the mountain, could not solve such a problem. Apple has been making computers for decades, but there is still very little software, and the software ecosystem has never been established.

Tesla’s in-vehicle system is destined to be difficult to use with rich in-vehicle apps.

This can be considered a first-mover disadvantage.