Baidu World Conference 2017 will release AI hardware, will Raven Technology play a leading role?

Chinanews.com, October 31st. The 2017 Baidu World Conference is about to be held. As one of the most influential events in China's Internet industry, Baidu announces its emerging technologies or strategic products at the conference every year. However, the pre-release article released by Baidu's official microblog this time, except for the slogan "Bring AI to Life" and a small translucent square box, there is no other information for reference. In addition, when participating in an event a few days ago, Robin Li joked that a series of particularly exciting new technologies will be announced at the Baidu Conference. Such mystery has aroused speculation from the outside world.

As we all know, Baidu has invested heavily in AI research and development in the past two years and has reaped great rewards. The autonomous driving division has been active since its establishment; Baidu Medical Brain combines cloud computing, big data and AI with the traditional medical industry to improve the efficiency of doctor-patient consultations; and Baidu users' DuerOS, a product that can communicate directly with users through voice and link to various life scenarios such as takeout and movie watching, has been launched.

All these measures show Baidu's determination to "go all in on AI". However, between vision and reality, when artificial intelligence has become a hot topic pursued by various companies, Baidu, which has always had leading technology, has been slow to make any moves in hardware products. The general consensus in the industry is that in order to do well in AI, it is necessary to find a scenario where it can be implemented.

It is speculated that Baidu's opportunity lies in its holdings of intelligent hardware and software solution companies such as Raven Technology and Xperception, and the support of a strong open ecosystem including the DuerOS open platform and the Apollo project. Baidu, which is at the forefront of the artificial intelligence business, will choose which scenario to break through first and become Baidu's new core business.

We can get a glimpse of this from the poster of this year's Baidu World Conference. "Bring AI to Life" indicates that the protagonist of this year's Baidu World Conference, AI, will be associated with "life" - that is, with new life scenarios, and further realize the application and implementation of AI technology through smart hardware products. Integrating AI+life, the goal is obviously Raven Technology.

In December 2016, Raven Technology released its smart hardware product RavenH-1. In February 2017, Baidu acquired the technology startup Raven Technology, and its CEO Lu Cheng became the general manager of Baidu's smart home hardware business. In July of the same year, Raven Technology's OK MAN operating system was upgraded to version 2.0. It has been widely rumored that Raven Technology will release Baidu's first smart hardware product, but there has been no movement.

The reporter contacted Raven's public relations department regarding the current speculation, but has not received a response yet. So far, there has been no obvious interaction between Baidu and Raven officials.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.