Recently, 36氪 was informed that Zhongke Wuqi, an intelligent IoT company, announced the completion of a PreA+ round of financing of nearly 300 million yuan. . It is reported that this round of financing will be mainly used to increase investment in technology research and development, accelerate business expansion and the implementation of scenarios.
Zhongke Wuqi was established in March 2018. The company’s core technology was incubated from the 2012 Information Technology Pilot Project “Sea Computing” of the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. and other core products, which can be widely used in the field of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things.
Zhang Lei, co-founder and CEO of Zhongke Wuqi, told 36氪 that in 2012, for the next-generation information infrastructure IT3.0 R&D layout, the Chinese Academy of Sciences launched the information technology pilot project, and the “Haiyun Computing” strategy began to be implemented. The founding team of Cambrian is deeply involved in “cloud computing” and researches on acceleration chips for servers; the founding team of Zhongke Wuqi is deeply involved in “ocean computing” – object computing, and researches on local acceleration and interconnection for massive terminal devices.
Zhongke Wuqi has three core technology products: the RISC-V-based AI chip “JX” series, the “human-machine-object” space intelligent operating system “Wuqi OS”, and the object-end supermicro computer “Hermit Crab”. In Zhang Lei’s view, the vigorous development of the Internet relies on “Intel chip + Windows operating system + personal computer”, while the mobile Internet relies on “ARM chip + Android operating system + smart phone” to establish an information ecology, and Zhongke Wuqi innovates the above three cores technology, and promote the application of the “universal chip + operating system + complete machine” paradigm in the field of intelligent Internet of Things.
The RISC-V-based AI chip “JX” series is a general-purpose end-side intelligent processing chip based on the RISC-V open instruction system. It has been iterated to the third generation – JX3. JX3 adopts 40nm process and heterogeneous computing processing architecture, integrates multi-core CPU, MCU, NPU, mainly for intelligent vision applications, and can meet the functions of object detection, image classification, gesture detection, face recognition and so on.
Zhongke Wuqi RISC-V AI chip
Wuqi OS is a space intelligent operating system, which is open to hardware device manufacturers and third-party software developers. It decouples devices from software applications, making things-end devices open, and intelligent functions can be expanded. Interconnection, to solve the core technical problems unique to the Internet of Everything scenarios such as multi-machine, remote, sharing, security, etc. The device open platform of Wuxi OS can support different capabilities of the device, including RTOS, Linux and AOSP kernel-based versions.
The “Hermit Crab”, an ultra-microcomputer on the object side, integrates the above-mentioned chips and intelligent operating systems, and uses 2.5D/3D packaging technology to perform bare-chip-level storage (Memory/Flash) and communication (WiFi/BLE) systems. Integration, thus condensing a complete computer core system into an ultra-small size All-in-One machine only the size of an SD card. Supermicro computers can be connected with external devices through standard pluggable interfaces, which reduces the difficulty of developing hardware products.
Supermicrocomputers on the habitat side of Zhongke-Hermit crab
Zhang Lei, CEO of Zhongke Wuqi, told 36Kr that supermicro computers have the advantages of low cost, low threshold and easy deployment. Its ultra-micro computer products are small in size and favorable in price, which can greatly reduce the cost of intelligent upgrades for customers; and the ultra-micro computer form standard, such as a mobile phone SIM card, can be inserted into the expansion slot of the device as a pluggable computing unit. , endow the equipment with intelligent capabilities.
Wuqi OS is a space intelligent operating system that decouples hardware and software, giving third-party software developers the authority and ability to develop software for devices. After the Mobi OS is installed, different devices can have interactive capabilities. Third-party developers can make devices intelligent and linked through software definition. In the face of third-party developers, Wuqi OS has established an “application market” system for object-end devices, which supports third-party developers to realize “human-machine-object” intelligent scene applications in the form of low-code.
Zhongke Wuqi has served more than 30 industry customers, mainly used in the fields of home life, sports health, toys, cultural and creative industries.
Zhang Lei, founder of Zhongke Wuqi, is a researcher and doctoral tutor of the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The co-founder Dr. Wang Yuantao is the former chief scientist of Intel China Research Institute and one of the 100 most influential scholars in the world in the field of computer systems. The company has a total of 160 employees, mainly located in Beijing, Nanjing, Shenzhen and other places. The Beijing team focuses on software research and development such as operating systems and open platforms, the Nanjing team focuses on chips, and Shenzhen is the market and sales base.
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