Shang Tang launched a sprint to generative AI.

All In AI has become the consensus of science and technology enterprises. As the representative of the last wave of AI in China, Shang Tang should also fully turn to the generative AI track.

On December 3rd, Li Xu, Chairman and CEO of Shangtang Technology, issued a letter to all employees, announcing the establishment of a new "1+X" architecture, in which "1" stands for core business, and Shang Tang wants to build an industry-leading AI cloud and realize seamless integration of large devices, basic models and AI applications. In the field of CV (Computer Vision), a general visual model is built to deepen various application scenarios.

"X" stands for the reorganized and split eco-enterprise matrix, including smart car "Ghost", home robot "Yuan Radish", smart medical care, smart retail and so on. At the same time, each eco-enterprise will set up an independent CEO and be responsible for business development.

This adjustment is based on the repositioning of the company's strategic direction and core areas. With the completion of the strategic reorganization, Shang Tang can better cope with the opportunities and challenges brought by the AI 2.0 era and fully embrace the generative AI.

In the last wave of AI, Shang Tang became one of the "Four Little Dragons of AI" by virtue of its technical advantages in face and visual recognition, and was successfully listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2021. At the end of 2022, with the sweeping wave of generative AI triggered by ChatGPT, Shang Tang began to increase the AI big model technology and application.

Since the end of 2022, Shang Tang's ever-increasing big model has invested more than 10,000 GPU computing resources. In April 2023, Shang Tang launched the ever-increasing version 1.0, which is one of the first big language models released in Shang Tang. In July, 2024, Ririxin further upgraded to version 5.5, which realized the comprehensive performance and real-time interactive experience of the benchmark GPT-4o and became the first multi-modal real-time interactive large model in China.

Until this strategic reorganization, Shang Tang built an organizational structure with generative AI as the core.

In October, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Shangtang Technology, Li Xu said that the company believed and expected the arrival of the era of general artificial intelligence. "Practically speaking, we have taken two steps: the traditional AI 1.0 and the generative big model AI 2.0."

In Li Xu's view, an important difference between AI 1.0 and AI 2.0 lies in the change of AI cost structure. In the traditional AI 1.0 era, the main cost of model production lies in the investment of R&D personnel. In the era of AI 2.0, the cost of model production mainly lies in the input of computing resources.

In short, the popularization and commercialization of the generative large model AI need to reduce the production and use costs of the large model, which is bound to combine the large model to iterate and optimize the computing power, and also to iterate the design and application of the large model according to the characteristics of the computing power resources.

Therefore, in the field of generative large model AI, Shang Tang's core strategy is to realize the seamless integration of large computing device (SCO), large model and application (CNI), with application driving the model and model driving the optimization of computing power. Therefore, Shang Tang has adjusted its organizational structure around its strategy and core resources.

Li Xu emphasized that the strategic significance of the new architecture is to strengthen the core business represented by generative AI, accelerate the realization of profitability and stabilize cash flow; Second, based on the synergy effect of the group's infrastructure advantages, it is more conducive to ecological enterprises to quickly seize the market opportunities of vertical industries; Third, the establishment of an independent CEO mechanism for ecological enterprises is more suitable for market-oriented development.

Facing the generative AI known as the "fourth industrial revolution", Shang Tang's advantages lie in years of technology accumulation, AI infrastructure and application ecology. According to the financial report, in the first half of 2024, the revenue of Shang Tang's generative AI business reached 1.051 billion yuan, a substantial increase of 255.7% year-on-year, and the proportion of revenue increased to 60.4%, making it a new pillar business of the company.

However, Shang Tang's future challenges should not be underestimated. AI is in a technical competition, which is an unprecedented global competition. At the same time, the huge gap between AI's huge investment and commercial income will still exist in the short term, which represents uncertainty for participating players.

After 10 years of deep cultivation in the AI field, Shang Tang has finally waited for the generative AI wave, and it will start again and go all out towards this opportunity.

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