Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1426
At the Future Technology Conference held by OPPO today, OPPO Andes Smart Cloud was officially unveiled. It is the last link in the “Three Major Plans” of the underlying core technology released by OPPO in 2020. The other two plans are Mariana, which makes chips, and Pantanal, which makes smart cross-terminal software systems.
OPPO also released a smart health monitor OHealth H1, a concept product based on Andes Smart Cloud, which can record six vital signs including blood pressure, blood oxygen, and heart and lung sounds, and then store and analyze these data in the cloud to provide remote diagnosis and treatment recommendations .
When the running score of the processor is just a number, the number of cameras will no longer increase from 1 to 4, and the screen resolution has stayed at 2K for 5 years. Mobile phones are no longer a lively market that attracts attention and capital. The Chinese smartphone market Shipments have fallen back to levels seen seven or eight years ago.
Faced with the overall decline in the industry, Xiaomi built cars, and Lei Jun “started a business again” to find new growth; OPPO took another route: continue to bet on the main business of consumer electronics, hoping to bring better experience with the progress of the underlying technology.
At the end of 2019, OPPO CEO Chen Mingyong announced at the Future Technology Conference that year that in the next three years, OPPO’s total R&D investment will reach 50 billion yuan. The following year, OPPO proposed three major plans: Mariana, Pantanal, and Andes, corresponding to chips, software engineering, and cloud services.
The three major plans have already had some preliminary results: Under the Mariana core-making plan, OPPO released a self-developed image-specific NPU (neural network processor) chip at the end of 2021, with shipments exceeding 10 million in the past year. A new flagship Bluetooth audio chip was released at the technology conference. Pantanal, which will be released in August 2022, has cooperated with SAIC to better connect mobile phones with other devices such as cars and tablets.
According to “LatePost”, since 2020, OPPO’s actual research and development expenses are more than the 50 billion yuan Chen Mingyong promised at the beginning. Andes Smart Cloud, which was officially launched at the end of 2020, now has a team of over 1,000 people.
The path chosen by OPPO is actually similar to that of Apple. When the smartphone industry was booming, Apple earned the most profits in the industry. When the industry as a whole was in decline, Apple was particularly “tenacious”. In the third quarter of this year, Apple’s market share in the Chinese market reached 25%, a record high. About 4190 yuan) and above the high-end market share is close to 70%.
Apple’s core competitiveness is that it owns the parts that directly affect the user experience – chips, operating systems, cloud services, app stores and corresponding data. It is user-centric rather than a single device-centric, providing a full range of hardware and software services and Smooth cross-device experience creates strong user stickiness.
The Apple model is not difficult in principle, but extremely difficult in execution. Limited by resources and technology accumulation, most Chinese companies could not take this path in the past; in the period of rapid development, they did not have to take this path, channels, design and marketing, which are more immediate investment directions. But when the rapid growth phase passed, OPPO, which still wanted to make a breakthrough in consumer electronics, had to gnaw the most difficult bone.
According to Jiemian News, in an internal speech this year, Chen Mingyong mentioned that OPPO invests in underlying technologies such as chips, “one is to provide users with a better experience, and the other is to have its own technical moat.”
He knows that this road is difficult, “It may really take ten years to sharpen the sword”, Chen Mingyong said: “But we are definitely not on a whim, and the wind and rain and setbacks have been taken into account.”
more than storage
Mobile phone companies offering cloud services are nothing new. Since Apple officially released iCloud at WWDC in 2011, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, Huawei, etc. have successively launched their own cross-device cloud storage services.
These cloud storage services allow users to back up their music, photos, purchased apps, calendars, documents and other data to the cloud and synchronize them to all devices in the account. For example, if you take a photo with your mobile phone, you can immediately view it on a tablet with the same account. Users thus have a complete set of digital assets, and the content no longer follows the device but follows the account. After years of development, the basic experience of cloud services of various companies has converged.
On this basis, Andes Smart Cloud is characterized by strengthening the cloud service functions for individual users and providing computing power for developers.
Liu Haifeng, President of OPPO’s Digital Intelligence Engineering Division, told LatePost: “Andes Smart Cloud and iCloud cannot be compared on an equal footing. The goals and technical architectures of the two are different. Andes’ positioning is to make terminals smarter, and storage is only one of the foundations. In addition, there are a series of capabilities such as machine learning and hardware simulation, which are aimed at the R&D team within OPPO and are not available to the public for the time being.”
Liu Haifeng concluded that in the user-oriented part, Andes Smart Cloud provides unlimited storage space, stronger AI and computing capabilities, and plans to provide a virtual-real fusion experience in the future.
Andes Storage will consider charging based on the cloud space actually used by the user, rather than setting up several fixed steps, which is the consistent practice of various mobile phone manufacturers. There is a big gap between different levels of tiered payment. For example, Apple’s cloud service will jump directly from 200 GB to 2 TB, and the price will jump from 21 yuan/month to 68 yuan/month. 200 GB is often not enough, and 2TB is too big.
Andes Smart Cloud provides a multi-terminal management function for work documents. After obtaining user authorization, it can store files that can only be opened by professional applications such as PPT, Word, PDF, and even CAD scattered in different terminals and applications in the cloud workspace, so that users can Open files of different formats on multiple terminals in real time without installing these professional software.
Stronger computing power means that Andes can transfer functions that require high computing power, such as AI capabilities, high-quality rendering, and big data analysis, to mobile phones and tablets with more configurations. When the terminal computing power is not so strong, the chip When the configuration is not so top-notch, cloud computing power can be topped.
Taking photos, the most common type of file on mobile phones, as an example, OPPO Cloud Album can use cloud AI capabilities to identify photo content, classify albums by person, extract photo text, and automatically generate short videos, etc. Apple’s iOS 10 released in 2016 also has a similar function, but at that time this function was realized by the computing power of the NPU on the Apple mobile phone chip.
At today’s press conference, OPPO also announced that Xiaobu, its artificial intelligence assistant built into mobile phones and tablets, has added an AI painting function, which can automatically generate paintings according to user descriptions. Behind this is the AIGC (AI generated content, content created by artificial intelligence) applications, and the training and calling of related algorithms are completed on Andes Smart Cloud.
Paintings generated by artificial intelligence assistant Xiaobu
The data analysis capability of the cloud can also realize the smart push service together with the smart cross-terminal system Pantanal released by OPPO in August: when the user enters a certain scene, the OPPO system can guess the user’s needs at this time according to the user’s habits, Then push the corresponding program. For example, after the user passes through the security check at the airport, the mobile phone will automatically recommend the coffee shop ordering applet in the terminal. Andes Smart Cloud provides the ability to analyze user habits and predict current needs.
In addition to serving OPPO’s existing equipment such as mobile phones and tablets, OPPO also launched a new smart terminal concept product based on Andes Smart Cloud, namely the health monitor H1 released at the conference. In addition to measuring and recording heart rate, heart and lung sounds, blood oxygen and other vital signs, this device can also use the disease screening algorithm trained on Andes Smart Cloud to extract potentially problematic data and send it to doctors for more accurate diagnosis and treatment. Through continuous data accumulation, H1 can build a complete health profile of users on the cloud.
For individual consumers, Andes Smart Cloud is still developing functions related to virtual space and virtual people to prepare for the future digital world of “integration of virtual and real”.
Liu Haifeng told “LatePost” that OPPO may create an exclusive virtual person for each user: a digital avatar with a special image, movement, demeanor, speaking style, tone and habits with the user’s imprint. This requires multiple AI capabilities such as vision, speech, and natural language processing, as well as powerful modeling and rendering capabilities. Mobile terminals such as mobile phones and AR glasses can carry limited computing power. Andes Smart Cloud can render a virtual digital human in the cloud, and then synchronize it to the user’s terminal.
Virtual digital human rendered in the cloud by Andes Smart Cloud
In addition to providing services to users, Andes Smart Cloud also internally supports OPPO’s other technology research and development.
Engineers can train AI algorithm models on the Andes Smart Cloud platform, and then provide cloud capabilities to OPPO’s hardware, software, Internet business and other departments in the form of SDK (Software Development Kit, software development kit).
Andes Smart Cloud is also providing cloud simulation verification capabilities for OPPO’s self-developed chips. Simulation verification is an important part of chip design, which can find out defects in advance and judge whether the chip can achieve the design function.
It is understood that Andes Smart Cloud has no external plans for the time being. It will not serve external customers like Alibaba Cloud. Its core goal is to improve the experience of OPPO mobile phones, tablets, AR glasses and other terminals and the comprehensive technical capabilities of OPPO, and eventually sell more Equipment and value-added services increase user stickiness.
Reasons to build your own cloud
Doing cloud is the general direction set by OPPO management in 2019, together with chip and software capabilities.
At that time, Huawei firmly occupied the top spot in the Chinese mobile phone market, and its core advantage was the comprehensive improvement of products and brand power brought about by its self-developed chips, software and other technical capabilities. In the face of stronger technology, in the past ten years, the means to help manufacturers quickly increase volume, such as online traffic bonuses, offline channels and marketing, have gradually become weak.
OPPO decided to increase investment in technology to enhance product experience. Cloud is an important part of it.
Prior to this, Xiaomi had disclosed in 2017 that Xiaomi’s cloud services were divided into three parts: Mi Cloud, Converged Cloud and Ecological Cloud. Provide cloud services. Apple also increased its investment in cloud services and data centers after 2018, and recruited technical leaders from companies such as Google and Amazon, hoping to get rid of its excessive dependence on AWS.
OPPO, which has never been too early, will start to increase investment in cloud services in 2020. How to make a difference? When the Andes Smart Cloud project was officially established in 2020, Liu Haifeng saw three specific trends related to cloud services: first, the cloud of enterprises has experienced the first wave of rapid growth, followed by personal and family cloud; the second is the individual user The number of consumer electronic devices has grown from one to two or three or even more. In addition to mobile phones, many users also use tablets, computers, watches, etc. of the same brand. They need more and better multi-terminal consistent experience and smart services. Multi-terminals need to be connected by the cloud; the third is a rising trend – virtual and real integration, users spend more and more time in the digital world, the demand for computing power in the virtual world is higher, and it will be difficult to rely solely on terminal-side computing power in the future Satisfy.
This corresponds to the three major features of Andes for consumers: unlimited storage space, stronger AI, computing power, and virtual-real fusion experience in development.
Cloud capabilities can be obtained through self-built computing clusters, or by purchasing public cloud services. After launching the Andes Project, OPPO adopts a global hybrid cloud layout, purchases resources from other public cloud vendors abroad, and builds its own cloud services in the domestic market with more users and more concentrated.
Liu Haifeng explained that the necessity of self-built cloud is to make the cloud and the terminal better collaborate, and at the same time allow OPPO’s technology to iterate faster.
Apple can provide a much better experience than its peers because it masters the adaptation of software and hardware, and the collaboration between terminals and the cloud. OPPO’s three major technology plans are similar in logic.
Taking photography and image processing as an example, Andes Smart Cloud is responsible for training image recognition and processing algorithms. The trained algorithms will be deployed on the image-specific NPU chip “Mariana X” released by OPPO last year. It can optimize images according to the scene. Allow users to take better quality photos.
The cooperation of the three major plans can also provide a scene-centric cross-terminal experience. For example, in a travel scenario, when the departure time is approaching, the watch will remind you that it’s time to leave, and push taxi and map applications; after arriving at the airport, the headset can voice prompt security check and boarding information; after the security check, the watch or mobile phone may push Nearby catering services; when arriving at the boarding gate, the electronic boarding pass will automatically pop up on the screen of the mobile phone. During the whole process, users do not need to repeatedly open multiple apps such as booking tickets, taxis, and ordering meals.
Behind this is the cooperation of chips, cloud and cross-terminal software. Chips and sensors can sense the user’s location; the cloud can conduct global analysis on the data of multiple terminals such as mobile phones, earphones, and watches to predict people’s needs; the cross-terminal software system provides human-computer interaction composed of mobile phones, watches, etc.
In the past, people brought equipment wherever they went. OPPO hopes that in the future, wherever people go, data and services will follow. This can not only give users a better experience, but also help partners, such as ordering meals and travel apps, to recommend services more accurately.
The benefits of self-built cloud also include more agile and rapid iteration of functions and experiences.
Li Haifeng said that if you master the cloud yourself, you can do a lot of software development on the cloud. It can also provide some intelligent experience, but it is difficult to control the iteration frequency by yourself.
Since the establishment of the project in 2020, OPPO has established a new first-level department, the Digital Intelligence Engineering Division, responsible for the Andes Project, and has formed a team of over 1,000 people distributed in Shenzhen, Nanjing, Beijing, Chengdu and other places.
Liu Haifeng said that Andes Smart Cloud has been building infrastructure and platform capabilities in the past two years: First, it has built OPPO’s first data center, which is located in Binhai Bay, Dongguan, which is more convenient to cooperate with the operator’s South China computing power backbone network The second is to establish platform capabilities such as data storage, machine learning, real-time rendering, intelligent dialogue, security and privacy, and hardware simulation for end-cloud collaboration.
The OPPO Smart Cloud (Greater Bay Area) data center plans to invest 1.5 billion, and plans to build 6,736 8kW cabinets, and a single park will contain 120,000 servers. The project is divided into four phases, and the first phase was put into use in April this year. OPPO disclosed in 2021 that the simultaneous construction of the Marina Bay R&D Center will have 20,000-30,000 R&D personnel.
Equipment will be eliminated, but capabilities will be precipitated
The three major technology plans that have been heavily invested in have all been released, and the future direction of OPPO’s bet has become increasingly clear: continue to follow the main business of consumer electronics, provide users with a better experience, and obtain corresponding added value.
In addition to the basic disk of mobile phones, OPPO’s own consumer electronics devices include tablets, headphones, watches, AR glasses, smart TVs, etc. Faced with the smart electric vehicle market that is more and more like consumer electronics, but also has huge differences, OPPO has no plans to end by itself, but cooperates with car companies through systems such as Pantanal.
Chen Mingyong visited some car companies in the first half of last year, and finally decided not to build cars. He said that OPPO will only build a car if the existing players cannot make a good car in the next ten years. He has yet to see the advantages of OPPO making cars.
Avoiding the fierce car-making competition does not mean that OPPO has chosen a better path. Investing in technology to improve user experience is not an approach that will see returns in a short period of time. Chen Mingyong once said in an internal speech that many efforts in this industry will only be effective after 5 or 6 years, and short-term efforts will not work.
The challenge faced by companies remaining in the mobile phone industry is no longer the rapid development of the industry and the ups and downs of market share, but whether they can continue to invest in a mature market where every inch is extremely difficult.
The risk of investing in technology and improving experience is that the investment may not be able to quickly transform into commercial results.
The immediate threshold is whether it can be made and whether the effect is good, which is affected by multiple internal and external factors. In 2014, Xiaomi, the top-selling mobile phone market in China, tried to develop its own chips. Lei Jun approached Arm China and asked how much and how many years it would cost to develop the main chip for mobile phones. The other party said that it would cost at least 1 billion yuan. Burn for 5 to 10 years.
Xiaomi released the self-developed chip The Paper S1 in 2017, which is used in the mid-range model Xiaomi 5C, but this chip has poor compatibility and the manufacturing process is a generation behind. At this time, Xiaomi has not yet fully overcome the difficulty of the sharp decline in sales in the previous year. Lei Jun personally took over the supply chain and R&D, and began to prepare for the listing. Certainly.
A deeper problem is patience. In the initial stage of technology investment, it is often not that the effect is not obvious, but that it has counter-effects. Companies that can achieve technological advancement have to survive the bitterness before the sweetness.
Huawei HiSilicon’s self-developed mobile phone chip was significantly different from the solutions of mainstream industry suppliers when it was first installed on the Ascend P6 in 2012, causing the mobile phone to heat up and freeze; Samsung’s vigorously promoted AMOLED screen also had color casts and sharpness in the early years bad question.
Huawei and Samsung were able to survive the initial “discomfort” because the two companies have other important businesses besides mobile phones, and they are more tolerant of short-term word-of-mouth, share decline, and even losses.
From this perspective, OPPO, whose main business is consumer electronic devices such as mobile phones, is facing a greater test.
So far, OPPO has shown its determination to continue investing.
Chen Mingyong said in an internal speech that it is precisely because it is difficult to make good chips that OPPO has done so in order to form an advantage in user experience for a long time, maintain long-term optimism and short-term caution.
According to “LatePost”, the OPPO chip team has reached more than 2,000 people. This scale may refer to more important chips other than ISP and Bluetooth chips; Thousands of people. These three plans all require high-end talents, and considering only the cost of manpower is not a small investment.
OPPO has survived multiple product cycles of DVDs, MP3 players, feature phones and smart phones, and has experienced many self-eliminations. Chen Mingyong once concluded that a specific product form may be eliminated by the times, but the accumulated technology will allow you to make products of the next era.
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