[ LEX CES Shanghai ] Discovering the latest Chinese innovations #CESAsia18ECH
Even if this event is fairly recent, it became in only 3 years the unmissable rendez vous for all the technological actors of the Asian market, indeed more than 97% of the attendees are coming from the APAC region. This is the biggest technological fair in Asia opened to all.
This year’s edition promises to beat records as they are announcing more than 40 000 visitors, more than 500 exhibitors, more than 1200 journalists, the whole in a space of 42 000m². This fair represents a real opportunity to tie strong commercials links for asian company regardless the size (industry leaders, majors internationals brands, startups…), especially when we know that in 2017, the technological Chinese market was estimated at more than 110 billions of dollars.
Therefore during 3 days, from 13th to 15th of June, exhibitors capitalize on the Shanghai CES to get in touch with retailers, e-retailers, clients and partners to launch new products and solutions on the Chinese market. For Echangeur, it addresses a twofold challenge because we will get to see closer the dominant players as Huawei, JD.com, Alibaba or Baidu, and thus test the innovative concept stores of the Chinese megalopolis.
DAY 1 @Shanghai
Barely off the plane, our expert Guillaume Rio, encountered a Chinese startup particularly innovative : iflytek. Ranked as the 6th « smartest company in the world » by the MIT Technology Review just behind Google, this startup specialized in artificial intelligence, has been selected by the Chinese government to build alongside Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, a national platform on artificial intelligence.
The performances of the solutions developed by iflytek are impressive with a accuracy rate higher than 98% for the vocal recognition and more than 500 millions of users of its voice to text app on mobile and computer.
As a proof, iflytek gave us a demo of its vocal AI.
For example, as seen in the above video, they are able to recreate Donald Trump’s voice and to make him say any text and even speak in Chinese.
Therefore, Chinese call centers are now managed by vocal chatbots that are adapting their speeches to clients’ feelings, (ED : one month ago, Google presented a video where a vocal AI book a restaurent, iflytek already does this since 2016).
Finally they pushed this voice recognition technology so that someone’s voice print can now act as a unique vocal signature. User can for example be identified on a banking app by talking to it.
DAY 2 @Shanghai
Second day for our expert Guillaume Rio in China and more precisely at the CES Asia. Today you will discover the Hema Fresh store which have been bought by Alibaba and that offers a seamless customer journey thanks to a smartphone: to order, pay and get product information. Also, as seen at Whole Foods, you can eat fresh product cooked directly on the spot. You choose the fresh product (a living lobster for instance) and they cook it for you to then eat it in the restaurant of the supermarket.
Finally, Guillaume Rio goes to CES Asia and gives you an introduction to the latest trends of the Chinese leaders which includes, vocal and facial recognition, automatic translation, and autonomous car …
DAY 3 @Shanghai
Third day at the CES for our expert Guillaume Rio. Today he talks about Tmall Genie AI Union presented by Miffy Chen, Head of Alibaba A.I Labs. This has been launched a few months ago, is already the third top selling model in the world!
Then JD.com also presented its vocal assistant Jing-Dong allowing clients to make purchases in the hub and also integrating features list like facial recognition.
Guillaume also presents Horizon Robot Facial Recognition that seems to be the leader on this market.
Finally, Deep Blue, discovered at Viva Technology 2018, has presented its autonomous store entirely managed by artificial intelligence.
DAY 4 @Shanghai
Last day at the CES Asia in Shanghai, our expert Guillaume Rio talks about the IPal robots designed to educate children and the latest hyper-connected autonomous cars. This final debriefing raises one question : Does all these innovations are the mirror of the famous novel 1984, with the human breakdown due to the technocracy’s proliferation or the entrance in an idyllic world?
