通往機器人時代的世界競賽

Surging investment in artificial intelligence is giving the US an early advantage in the race to dominate a new era of robotics, according to investors and experts in an industry that is set to become one of the most strategically important.

人工智能領域的投資者和專家稱，該領域的投資飆升讓美國在主宰機器人新時代的競爭中搶佔先機，該領域即將成爲最具戰略重要性的行業之一。

Recent advances in AI, particularly in a technique known as deep learning, have shifted robotics from its core industrial market into areas such as self-driving cars, fuelling debate over the benefits and threats posed by the rise of the robots.

最近人工智能領域的進步（尤其是在所謂深度學習的技術上），讓機器人從核心的工業市場轉向自動駕駛汽車等領域，這激起了有關機器人崛起所帶來的好處和威脅的辯論。

As the technology extends its reach beyond factory production lines, the US and China are poised to take the lead from Japan and Germany, which dominate traditional industrial robotics.

隨着這種技術擴大到工廠生產線以外，美國和中國將從主宰傳統工業機器人的日本和德國手中奪走領軍地位。

Investment in the sector in the US more than doubled to $587m last year, according to CB Insights, a venture capital research firm. That is helping drive global growth of 17 per cent a year, according to research group IDC, whichprojects the robot market will almost double from $71bn to $135bn by 2019.

根據風投研究機構CB Insights的數據，去年，美國在人工智能領域的投資增加逾一倍，至5.87億美元。據研究機構IDC的數據，這幫助推動全球投資每年增長17%，該機構預測，到2019年，機器人市場的規模將從710億美元增加近一倍，達到1350億美元。

“The most interesting things are in Silicon Valley or the US,” said Dmitry Grishin, a Russian internet entrepreneur and investor who has raised a $100m fund to invest in robot and other hardware start-ups. As low-cost robots move into more consumer and business uses, such as drones, China’s hardware manufacturing expertise will also make it a more significant player, he added.

俄羅斯互聯網創業者和投資人德米特里•格里申(Dmitry Grishin)表示：“最有趣的事情發生在硅谷或美國其他地方。”他籌集了一支1億美元的基金，用於投資機器人和其他創業型硬件企業。他補充稱，隨着低成本機器人轉向更多消費和商業用途（例如無人機），中國在硬件製造方面的專長將令其成爲一個更重要的參與者。

Beijing’s booming demand for automation as it tries to claw its way up the manufacturing value chain has also fuelled efforts to build a local robot sector. However, most industry executives say it will take years for China to match technology from companies in Japan and other established manufacturers.

此外，隨着中國努力攀爬製造業價值鏈，中國對自動化日益旺盛的需求一直推動其努力打造本土機器人行業。然而，多數行業高管表示，中國要趕上日本公司以及其他老牌製造商的技術還需要數年之久。

The threat from new AI and cloud technologies has prompted a scramble among established players not to get left behind. Japan’s Fanuc, the world’s largest maker of industrial robots, has announced plans to start connecting its 400,000 installed machines by the end of this year, to collect data about their operations and improve their performance.

來自新的人工智能和雲技術的威脅，促使老牌參與者紛紛行動起來以免落後。全球最大工業機器人制造商日本發那科(Fanuc)宣佈計劃，將在今年底之前開始將其40萬臺已安裝機器聯網，以收集操作數據並改善機器性能。

Japan’s manufacturing lead over the US should sustain its edge in industrial robots, said Junichi Hasegawa, chief strategy officer at Preferred Networks, a Japanese deep learning company that counts Fanuc — whose machines are all painted bright yellow — among its investors. “We can’t fight with information stored on the cloud, but the yellow robots are everywhere in the world and they gather data. If you ask whether Google can do the same, the answer is no,” he said.

日本深度學習公司Preferred Networks首席運營官長谷川順一(Junichi Hasegawa)表示，日本在製造業相對於美國的領先地位，應該會支撐其在工業機器人領域佔據優勢。該公司的投資者包括髮那科（發那科生產的機器人都被塗成亮黃色）。他表示：“我們競爭不過存儲在雲上的信息，但黃色機器人遍佈全世界，他們會收集數據。如果你問谷歌(Google)是否也能這麼做，答案是否定的。”

While US internet companies such as Google and Facebook have led the investment in deep learning, Silicon Valley has seen a wider start-up boom in AI and robotics. A collapse in the price of components, thanks to smartphone growth, has made it cheaper to launch robot companies, investors say.

谷歌和Facebook等美國互聯網公司一直引領深度學習領域的投資，而硅谷則出現了人工智能和機器人領域的更廣泛創業潮。投資者表示，得益於智能手機的增長，零配件價格大幅下跌，這降低了創建機器人公司的成本。

So-called “intelligent” robots play to US strengths through new technologies and software culture, they added.

他們補充稱，通過新技術和軟件文化，所謂的“智能”機器人發揮了美國的優勢。

“At its core, these companies need to be machine vision companies, that get better as they get more data,” said Chris Dixon, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley investment firm.

硅谷投資公司Andreessen Horowitz合夥人克里斯•狄克遜(Chris Dixon)表示：“從本質來看，這些公司需要成爲機器視覺(MV)公司，獲取的數據越多，表現就越出色。”

The new entrepreneurs rushing into the field are different from the hardware engineers who historically dominated the field, he added: “They don’t like to use the word robotics — they think of [it] as an electrical engineering mindset, versus … autonomy and AI.”

涌入該領域的新的創業者與以往一直主宰該領域的硬件工程師不同，他補充稱：“他們不喜歡使用‘機器人’這個詞，他們認爲……相對於自動化和人工智能，（它）是一種電子工程思維。”

The new technologies changing robotics are “available today” and advanced enough to have a disruptive impact across other industries, said Steve Jurvetson, an investor in Tesla Motors and SpaceX, companies led by Elon Musk.

投資了埃隆•馬斯克(Elon Musk)旗下的特斯拉汽車(Tesla Motors)和SpaceX兩家公司的史蒂夫•尤爾韋特鬆(Steve Jurvetson)表示，改變機器人的新技術“現在已就緒”，而且相當先進，足以對其他行業產生顛覆性影響。