Jingdong'S Experiment Of Technology Reconstruction Industry

For the past half month, Zhou Bowen has been traveling all over the country.

On November 14, he went to Jiaxing to discuss the productivity transformation of AI at the China Intelligent Industry Summit Forum. On November 24, he appeared at the world Internet Conference in Wuzhen to talk about the future of digital intelligence industry. On November 25, Zhou Bowen, who had not been able to sleep for almost two days and two nights, went back to Beijing again and expounded the development and layout of Jingdong technology at the 2020 Jingdong global Explorer conference.

In the face of the current trend of industrial digital intelligence, chairman of Jingdong group technical committee, President of Jingdong Zhilian cloud, IEEE fellow Zhou Bowen and Jingdong behind him spare no effort. At the 2020 Jingdong global science and technology explorers conference, JD released four enterprise level products: Retail cloud, Jinghui, Yanxi and lunling, respectively, and provided their own technical solutions around pan retail, supply chain, human-computer interaction and collaboration, and modern urban governance.

The intensive launch of a number of products reflects Jingdong's determination to comprehensively open up its technology, and at the same time, it is inseparable from its strong "technology base".

"We will open up artificial intelligence, big data, cloud, Internet of things and our cutting-edge exploration technology, integrate our ecological chain advantages, and provide a unified cloud base, technology platform, data intelligence platform, and collaborative management platform." In an exclusive interview with the 21st century economic report, Zhou Bowen said, "through the relationship of integration and integration, we can connect the consumer Internet and the industrial Internet together with our ecological partners, so as to reduce social costs and improve social efficiency."

Unified technology opening

With the first proposed digital intelligent social supply chain for the next ten years, technology opening has become a consensus both inside and outside Jingdong.

"I think JD's thinking is completely open, and everything serves users and customers all over the world." Zhou Bowen explained in his reply to the 21st century economic reporter about Jingdong's technological opening up.

In fact, in the past three years, Jingdong technology has been adhering to an open mind. But looking back on the past, this path was not achieved overnight.

In 2018, JD launched the AI open platform neuhub to explore the possibility of AI technology opening with the unique architecture of "platform + Research Institute + innovative business model". During this year's double 11, neuhub platform has nearly 100 billion calls, which also verifies the potential of Jingdong AI technology under this mode.

But this is only one of the nodes of its open technology. By the end of 2019, JD will integrate cloud computing, artificial intelligence and IOT services, and push them to customers in March this year. Now, JD has the ability to provide a unified cloud base, technology center, data intelligence platform, and collaborative management platform, completing the technology opening route from single point to plane.

In Zhou Bowen's view, such an open line has continuity and continuity. Neuhub, the earliest open AI platform, has achieved good results. At the same time, as a part of Jingdong technology center, the mature AI open platform will support other platform capabilities, such as introducing AI capabilities such as machine learning and reinforcement learning to realize data intelligence on the data intelligence platform.

From point to surface, "unified external" is the most obvious feature of the technology opening of JD, which can not be separated from the sorting out of the technical committee of Jingdong group in the past year. Zhou Bowen pointed out that through the top-level design of technology, Jingdong has realized the technology unification inside, thus breaking the situation of "technology only service business" in the past.

According to reports, at present, a unified cloud base platform has been formed within JD. Whether it is IDC data center, physical machine, container, etc., it is provided by the cloud platform within jd.com cloud. In addition, the technology platform, collaborative management platform and data intelligence platform are also integrated in the Jingdong Zhilian cloud.

Internally, the effect has been verified. Previously, in an interview with the 21st century economic reporter, Yan weipeng, vice president of Jingdong group, chairman of Jingdong retail technical committee, head of Jingdong retail technology and data center and President of business promotion business division, revealed that during the double 11 period this year, the peak volume of orders per second of Jingdong increased by 51% month on month compared with 6.18, while the resource cost per unit order decreased by 29% compared with that in 2019, among which online containers The peak utilization of CPU increased by 20.7% year-on-year, and the dedicated line traffic in machine room decreased by 13.3%.

The reason for the large-scale improvement of the use of digital in Yan weipeng is that. It is understood that this year, the core business of Jingdong retail has fully used Zhilian cloud. "We help the Zhilian cloud team to better create products, and they help us save costs and improve efficiency. This is a win-win cooperation."

It is not only the improvement of cost efficiency on the surface, but also the strong explosive force of unified and open technology in terms of product launch. This is also the reason why JD can quickly launch four solutions under different scenarios in this global science and technology Explorer conference. Through the rapid launch and iteration of products, JD can radiate its digital intelligence capability to a broader external.

"The four unified platforms of JD can help efficient, rapid and agile development, accurately reflect customer needs, and quickly launch, operate, develop and guarantee various services." Zhou Bowen said, "we have reached a consensus internally and formed a unified rhythm in actual work."

According to the report "the Forrester wave: evaluation of public cloud development and infrastructure platform manufacturers in China" released by Forrester in October this year, bat, Huawei and Jingdong have formed the "first echelon" camp among Chinese manufacturers in 2020 compared with 2018. Among them, Jingdong Zhilian cloud has increased by 21% and 108% respectively in the three core aspects of strategic layout and market performance.

Future industry remodeling

After the technology is packaged and fully opened, JD's vision is to reshape various industries in the future. Zhou Bowen, for example, said that in response to the digital transformation needs of a large-scale automobile enterprise, Jingdong has helped it create a unified digital user system, operation system and middle platform management system.

But there is more room for technology to transform the industry. Whether it is the product development of the front-end production or the quality inspection process of the back-end, JD has its own ideas.

For example, this year, jd.com developed the world's first fully AI driven c2m product. It is understood that JD has built a c2m system driven by the consumer side and the production end. In the system, two neural networks are designed. One neural network simulates the user's portrait and preference, and the other simulates the commodity attributes. The two neural networks attack and defend each other, iteratively optimizing the performance design of hundreds of refrigerators. When the two neural networks start to balance, the optimal equilibrium point is found, and then the production, scheduling and decision optimization are done.

According to the data provided by jd.com, during June 18, this year, the first full artificial intelligence customized refrigerator launched by the joint manufacturer of Jingdong did not involve human intervention in the whole process of research and development, but the production time was shortened by more than 83% compared with similar products.

At the back end of the production chain, JD has been able to participate in auxiliary quality inspection and improve production efficiency by using emerging technologies such as AI and 5g. "We use small sample learning and computer vision technology, with the support of 5g network, to achieve multiple photos within milliseconds and cloud identification, and return defective products to the manipulator, so as to help them operate accurately and distinguish high-quality products, good products and defective products, so as to improve the quality inspection efficiency." Zhou Bowen said.

However, in Zhou Bowen's view, this is just the entry point for Jingdong to open up intelligent manufacturing. When the quality inspection process is completely digital and intelligent, JD's next step is to understand the source of product defects through big data analysis, and put the post quality inspection computer vision logic in front, so as to improve the yield and reduce the defective rate at the production end.

"From quality inspection to manufacturing process, the cost-effectiveness of the whole process has been improved in the field of intelligent manufacturing." In the last week, Bowen said, "reverse production."

However, Zhou Bowen also admitted that such a process of industrial digital intelligence still needs time. From the internal of Jingdong and Jingdong Zhilian cloud, it also needs time.

"This year, our top priority is to integrate cloud computing, AI, and IOT collaborative management platforms, which belongs to the stage of" adjusting course "and replenishing talents and organizational capabilities. If we want to talk about the achievements, it means that the strategy is clear, the management is focused, the product strength is improved and the market recognition is higher. " Zhou Bowen told reporters, "however, at present, we are talking more about problems. In the future, under the guidance of the new strategy, we hope that Jingdong technology can accelerate its growth."