Jack Ma: Who you will be in 18 years is decided today

[51CTO.com original article] The World Internet of Things Expo, hosted by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the People's Government of Jiangsu Province, was held in Wuxi from September 10 to 13, 2017. At the summit forum on the first day of the Expo, Internet and Internet of Things experts and scholars from the government and enterprises delivered insightful speeches from different perspectives on the theme of the Internet of Things, sharing their unique thoughts on the development of the Internet of Things in their respective fields, bringing about a collision of wisdom and a feast of ideas. The speech of Mr. Jack Ma, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alibaba Group, who was the last speaker, was even more meaningful.

Mr. Jack Ma's speech

Two days ago, Alibaba Group celebrated its 18th anniversary. 18 years ago, Jack Ma founded Alibaba. "Today's Alibaba was not created today, but was created by the decision made 18 years ago. And who you will be 18 years from now, or 20 years from now, is not determined by the decision made 20 years from now, but by the thinking and decision made today." Jack Ma expressed his thoughts on the Internet of Things and success in his usual speaking style.

Jiangsu began exploring the Internet of Things in 2009. At that time, the country called today's Internet of Things the National Sensor Network. In 2009, Alibaba launched Alibaba Cloud Computing. At that time, no one could tell what the future of cloud computing would look like, but we believed that this was the future and this was a trend. Both parties persisted for eight years to get to where we are today.

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Mr. Jack Ma's speech

Mr. Ma Yun analyzed Jiangsu Province's exploration of the Internet of Things and Alibaba's exploration: When Jiangsu Province began to explore, I believe everyone just thought it was a concept. When Alibaba was exploring cloud computing, it also thought it was a concept. Today, there are more and more concepts, including cloud computing, big data, smart logistics, and IOT. In fact, it shows a problem that humans are moving in a common direction. Just like in the last century, some people said that cars are important, some people said that road construction is important, and some people said that oil is important. In fact, everyone is moving in the same direction. This is the arrival of an energy era, and today's human beings will truly begin to enter the data era.

In Jack Ma's universe of thought, data technology is comparable to social production: the future development of big data is inseparable from three main elements, namely the Internet, big computing and cloud data. Data will become the most important means of production. Big data covers two key points. "Big" does not mean "more". "Big" means big computing. Big computing plus cloud data is what we think of as big data. First of all, data will become the most important means of production. If the first technological revolution, coal was the main means of production and coal was the main kinetic energy, and the second technological revolution was oil and electricity, this technological revolution, driven by innovation, data will become the most important means of production. The third technological revolution will be driven by innovation, and data will become the most important means of production. The Internet itself is a production relationship. The Internet is not the Internet of Internet companies, but the Internet of the whole society. Cloud computing will become a powerful productivity.

Indeed, as technology continues to develop outward, the trend of data is moving towards our inner selves: in the past two hundred years, due to the development of science and technology, we have learned more and more about the outside world. We have gone to outer space, explored the moon and Mars, and continued to explore the outside world, but humans know less and less about themselves. In the next one or two hundred years, we will explore the inner world of humans, which will have major breakthroughs in life sciences. It is not a joke or a luxury for people to live to 120 or 150 years old, because people will know more and more about themselves.

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2017 World Internet of Things Wuxi Summit

What we don’t know about the future far outweighs what we know. Just like Alibaba was not established today, it was established 18 years ago when we believed that this day would come. We also believe that the future world will be like this, and we work hard for it.

Jack Ma believes that anything that can be clearly defined today is not the future. He thinks that how we imagine the future today is naive. Although 18 years ago, we knew that the Internet and e-commerce would develop, we did not imagine that e-commerce and the Internet would develop into this way 18 years later. When humans discovered electricity a hundred years ago, they thought that electricity was used for light bulbs, and did not expect that there would be rice cookers and air conditioners today. Today, our understanding of data, the so-called data monopoly, is not as much as a drop in the ocean compared to the data in 20 years, compared to the data after everything is connected. So what we have to think about today is how to face the future, how to lay a direction, how to persist, and constantly improve it. Today's collision of ideas is very meaningful, even milestone-like.

The changes of the times were pioneered by him and his team 18 years ago. The future 18 years later is also slowly coming in line with the prediction of this legendary figure: In the IT era, mankind has moved from IT to DT. IT stands for Information Technology, and DT stands for Data Technology. This is not a difference in words or technology, but a difference in ideas. IT is to make yourself stronger, while DT must learn to share and benefit others. Only by making others stronger can you become stronger. The trend of the whole world is towards inclusiveness, sharing and sustainability.

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