Evolution of "Giant": SAIC invests 300 billion yuan to accelerate the transformation of "Little Giant of Science and Technology"

If SAIC, which announced at the SOA developers' conference 10 days ago that it would invest 300 billion yuan in intelligent electric and other innovative fields during the 14th five-year Plan period, only threw out a huge investment plan, then SAIC Group, which almost monopolized National Exhibition and Convention Center Hall 3 at the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show, which opened on April 19th, took the form of more than 160 new cars and 15 TED talks, including more than 10 initial models. It shows the determination and strength of "giant evolution" to the industry.

"the automobile industry, with a history of 135 years, has always kept pace with the times, constantly merging and absorbing new scientific and technological achievements and new business models, and becoming an industrial platform of openness and inclusiveness, integrated innovation and cross-border coordination. In the face of the new era, the automobile industry will continue to be eclectic, embrace the old and accept the new, and realize transformation, upgrading and development. " Chen Hong, chairman of SAIC Group, made a speech at the SOA developer Conference, which sounded the horn of SAIC's comprehensive transformation to a high-tech enterprise.

300 billion yuan to support the 13th five-year Plan

In big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies are changing with each passing day, how to build a "software car" with massive applications, thousands of people experience, and considerate micro-service? SAIC gives the answer-- relying on the central centralized electronic architecture and SOA software platform, accelerate the overall transformation to high-tech enterprises.

To this end, SAIC plans to invest 300 billion yuan in innovative fields such as smart electric during the 14th five-year Plan period. In the field of intelligent network connection, SAIC will speed up the promotion of independent innovation around the strategic concept of the "13th five-year Plan". Among them, "one" represents "user-centered"; "three" represents the three major directions of intelligent network connected products, intelligent network connected system and intelligent network connected ecology; and "five" represents the five core technological capabilities of software, artificial intelligence, network information security, big data and cloud computing.

According to the financial report, SAIC's operating income in 2020 was 742.132 billion yuan, with a net profit of 20.431 billion yuan. The investment of 300 billion yuan in the next five years means that SAIC's net profit of about 15 years will be "consumed". According to the R & D investment disclosed in the financial report, SAIC invested 14.967 billion yuan in R & D in 2020, and the investment of 300 billion yuan is equivalent to four times the annual R & D investment of SAIC in the next five years.

How to promote the turn of the "elephant" from the capital level and technology field? It has become a realistic problem in front of SAIC.

"from the point of view of the industry, this is a new era in which the momentum of development is transformed. The new momentum of development characterized by electric intelligence is building a new track for the next round of industrial competition. " Chen Hong said that with Internet cars as the starting point, SAIC has carried out an extensive and in-depth layout in the fields of smart driving, smart module, Zhaopin, and Zhichi, and has set up a number of innovative business units, such as software centers, smart driving centers, artificial intelligence centers, and so on. speed up the formation of a "cloud management" integrated full-stack solution.

Zhiji L7, who became the "King of popularity" in National Exhibition and Convention Center Pavilion 3, is the representative of SAIC in the field of technology. This is a luxury pure electric smart car that creates a full scene and the most continuous Door to Door Pilot smart driving experience for Chinese users. it has been only five months since the project was unveiled to pre-sale. The R car "5G intelligent electric SUV" MARVEL R in Hall 7.2, with China's 5G terminal telecom equipment access license certified by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and SRRC vehicle specification grade 5G/C-V2X terminal product certification, is the world's first 5G intelligent electric vehicle that can be put on the road.

In fact, both the Zhiji L7 and the "smart new species" R ES33, are subversive new models developed by SAIC based on the zero beam SOA software platform, showing SAIC's active exploration in the field of "software-defined vehicles". Among them, the Zhiji L7 is equipped with SOA open full-stack software architecture, while the R car uses SAIC zero beam "Galaxy full-stack solution" as the technology base, raising the technical level of intelligent driving to a new level.

The "Little Giant" took the lead, sounding the horn of SAIC's technological transformation.

Will take the lead in the luxury pure electric intelligent car Zhiji L7, and the "new species of wisdom" R car zero beam SOA software platform, from the SAIC Group formally established in May 2020 subsidiary-zero beam software.

"Zero Beam Software Company is the main carrier for SAIC to realize a 'software-defined car'." SAIC said that in April this year, Zero released the subversive "Galaxy full-stack Smart car solution", covering four basic technology solutions: central centralized electronic architecture, SOA software platform, smart car data factory, full-stack OTA and network security solutions, as well as cross-domain integration end-to-end digital experience platform, which can achieve hardware "pluggable, pluggable, scalable; software can be bought, sold, subscribed".

"SOA is a design idea. What kind of chemical change will happen when it encounters automobile hardware? I think it's infinitely possible. " On April 19, the first day of the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show, Meng Chao, standing in the center of the No. 3 pavilion of SAIC, stressed that the foundation for the birth of this "infinite possibility"-SOA plus smart car hardware, equals "infinite possibility".

"Today is the Shanghai Auto Show. We see a lot of new cars released, and we also see many companies building cars across the border. New forces, traditional OEM and even some home appliance companies are also building cars. Why is this happening today?" Meng Chao continued his speech on the theme of "Infinite possibilities". "Smart cars can be compared to a gold mine. Everyone is on a gold rush. What role does SOA play in this gold rush?" We think it is the ore of atoms, and the developers are the mining tools of this kind of atomic ores, and the applications we have developed are diamonds and diamond malls. So far, SAIC Zero Bundle has provided a total of 1900 SOA services, including car, cloud and data services, which are fully open to all developers. "

Meng Chao is the chief architect of Zero Software. At the moment, his identity has temporarily changed into a "smart man"-- "smart guy"-- a "smart man" under SAIC. SAIC is trying to communicate with users in such a way and convey to the outside world the practice of SAIC's comprehensive transformation into a high-tech enterprise.

Along with Meng Chao, he became a "smart coffee". There are also a number of colleagues from Jethydrogen Technology, which specializes in fuel cell technology, Zhonghaiting, the industry's leading provider of full-link service for high-precision electronic maps, Jingdu Technology, which provides solutions for the intelligent control system of vehicle chassis, and the independent "leader" of domestic Intelligent Network Automotive Technology. And these enterprises are the "small giants of technology" incubated by the "giant" of SAIC.

According to industrial and commercial data, the oldest of these "tech giants" is no more than four years old, that is, they were all born after 2017. In April 2017, SAIC's forward-looking Technology Forum was held in Shanghai. SAIC once again proposed to realize innovation transformation and upgrading around the concept of "electrification, networking, intelligence and sharing".

"Today, this batch of technological and innovative companies incubated by SAIC have emerged in their respective fields, and SAIC has also made corresponding arrangements in the capital market in order to accelerate its transformation from the capital market and technology." Some industry insiders analyzed that.