Zheng Qingsheng of HSG: When Artificial Intelligence Becomes a Form of Energy

"Artificial intelligence may not be an industry, but a form of energy, just like oil and electricity."

"From an investment perspective, the current era is more certain, because we know several major trends in the future are bound to happen, such as AI, embodied intelligence, and evolution."

Zheng Qingsheng from HSG

On September 21, at the salon titled "Meet at the Peak - Kevin Kelly in Dialogue with New Chinese Tech Forces" held in Beijing, Zheng Qingsheng, Partner of HSG, made the above statement from the perspective of investment judgment and other dimensions. The event was co-hosted by 36Kr and Chen Yuan 139, Zhongjian Zhidi.

At this event, Kevin Kelly, Wang He, Founder and CTO of Galaxy General Robotics, Zheng Qingsheng, Partner of HSG, Shi Yaqiong, Vice President of Jinqiu Fund, and Feng Dagang, CEO of 36Kr, shared and discussed around the theme "When AI Reshapes Civilization: Technology, Out of Control and Investment Judgment".

As an investor with about 20 years of investment experience who has fully gone through the three waves of the Internet, mobile Internet and generative artificial intelligence, Zheng Qingsheng is one of the guests who received the most questions during the roundtable session. His investment track record includes not only era-representative projects like Dianping, but also the "counter-trend" decision to bet on MiniMax before a market-wide consensus was formed.

Feng Dagang asked what the basis for the bet was back then, and how the judgment has been tested over the years. His answer was very straightforward: there was no precise calculation, and what supported the decision was the team's belief in general artificial intelligence, supplemented by cross-verifiable objective signals such as papers and data. He also revealed that his institution decided to make large-scale layout in this field as early as the third quarter of 2022, when most people had not seen the clear direction. Although they were also very uncertain, they still perceived that "a new door to history has been opened".

Left: Feng Dagang, CEO of 36Kr, Right: Zheng Qingsheng from HSG

During this event, Zheng Qingsheng put forward a judgment: the current era may be more friendly to investment, the reason is that several major trends in the future are certain.

"I think the era we are in now is better than any period in history. Why? Because we now know that several major trends in the future are bound to happen, such as the further development of artificial intelligence, robots, embodied intelligence, and evolution. All these are certain. In any previous cycle of scientific and technological revolution in history, when you stand in that cycle and think about the future, what is certain? Technological progress is hard to predict, but the entire embodied intelligence, robotics, including process technology applications, are definitely the development trends for the next 10 to 20 years. Is this kind of creation driven by capital? Actually, I have always thought that capital can hardly drive it. I think all bubbles are necessary to exist, and bubbles will appear at the beginning of every cycle. But the final trend is still the development of technology. So I think at this point in time, our confidence should be stronger and more stable. Back when the mobile Internet trend came to an end, we were actually confused about the future. We were also confused when the Internet era ended. But when we look at the next 10 or 20 years today, we are far less confused than before."

Left: Zheng Qingsheng from HSG, Right: Kevin Kelly

This relatively optimistic judgment coincides with Kevin Kelly's idea. In his speech titled "How Will We Live When AI Enters the Physical World", KK judged that artificial intelligence trained on text has acquired book knowledge, and the next breakthrough will take place in spatial intelligence and world models. The greatest product in the next 25 years has not been invented yet. There are no real experts at the cutting edge, and "you still have a chance". He also defined optimism as a strategic choice, and reiterated the concept of "alien intelligence" - the fact that machines are different from humans is not a defect, but exactly where their greatest value lies.

Zheng Qingsheng provided another set of arguments for this optimism from the perspective of a longer industrial history. He compared artificial intelligence to a form of energy, rather than another specific industry.

"But it has two obvious differences. First, it seems to have no ceiling. In the era of digital revolution, the total volume of products you develop cannot exceed the sum of human attention. When people all over the world are scrolling TikTok and Douyin, you reach the limit. But artificial intelligence can break through this limit. You can have one agent, or 10,000 of them. As long as you want, you can run 10,000 agents at the same time. Oil and electricity have upper limits, but I don't think AI has. Second, as a form of energy itself, AI can create itself, which has never happened before. So now I am increasingly looking into the Industrial Revolution, the era of steam engines, the era of electricity, and the era of oil. Ford was the best application case in the oil era."