The digital assembly line

数字化装配线

Technology firms vie for billions in data-analytics contracts 

科技公司争夺着数十亿美元的数据分析合同

词汇

vie for/争夺；竞争

Two surprising leaders have emerged from the pack

两位令人惊讶的领导者脱颖而出

Sep 5th 2019 | REDWOOD CITY AND SAN FRANCISCO 

SOMEBODY LESS driven than Tom Siebel would have long since thrown in the towel. In 2006 the entrepreneur, then 53 years old, sold his first firm, Siebel Systems, which made computer programs to track customer relations, to Oracle, a giant of business software. That left him a billionaire—but a restless one. In 2009, a few months after Mr Siebel had launched a new startup, he was trampled by an elephant while on safari in Tanzania. When, a dozen surgeries later, he could work again, the enterprise almost went bankrupt. Undeterred, he rebooted it.

没有汤姆·希贝尔那么干劲十足的人早就认输了。2006年，这位53岁的企业家将他的第一家公司希贝尔系统软件有限公司（Siebel Systems）卖给了商业软件巨头甲骨文(Oracle)。这让他成为了亿万富翁，但也让他坐立不安。2009年，就在西贝尔创办一家新公司几个月后，他在坦桑尼亚旅游时被一头大象踩伤。十几次手术之后，当他可以重返岗位时，这家企业几乎破产。他没有气馁，重新启动了它。

词汇

Safari/狩猎远征，游猎；旅游期间；外出期间

Trample/踩伤；践踏

Mr Siebel’s fortitude has paid off. The firm, now called C3.ai, raised $100m in venture capital last year, valuing it at $2.1bn. It was an early bet on data analytics, which converts raw data (from a machine’s sensors or a warehouse) into useful predictions (when equipment will fail or what the optimal stocking levels are) with the help of clever algorithms. Many investors see fortunes to be made from this new breed of enterprise software, which is spreading from Big Tech’s computer labs to corporations everywhere.

希贝尔先生的坚韧得到了回报。艾未未去年筹集了1亿美元风险资本，对该公司的估值为21亿美元。这是对数据分析的早期押注。数据分析利用聪明的算法，将原始数据(从机器的传感器或仓库)转换成有用的预测(设备何时会故障或最佳库存水平是多少)。许多投资者认为，这种新型企业软件将创造财富，这种软件正从大型科技公司的计算机实验室扩展到世界各地的企业。

词汇

Fortitude/ n. 刚毅；不屈不挠；勇气

Worldwide, 35 companies that dabble in data analytics feature on a list of startups valued at $1bn or more, maintained by CB Insights, a research firm. Collectively, these unicorns—some of which brand themselves as purveyors of artificial intelligence (AI)—enjoy a heady valuation of $73bn. According to PitchBook, another research company, the six biggest alone are worth $45bn (see chart 1). Many venture capitalists who back them are hoping to emulate the successful initial public offerings this year of less exalted business-services startups like CrowdStrike, which provides cybersecurity, or Zoom, a video-conferencing company. And then some.

在全球范围内，35家涉足数据分析的公司被研究公司CB Insights列入了一份价值10亿美元或以上的初创公司名单。总体而言，这些独角兽(其中一些自称为人工智能(AI)供应商)的拥有着令人狂热的高达730亿美元的估值。根据PitchBook,另一家研究公司,仅六家巨头企业身价就高达450亿美元(见图表1)。许多支持他们的风险资本家希望企业能够效仿今年成功的首次公开发行(ipo)实例，从损失较小的业务开始做起，比如CrowdStrike——一家提供网络安全的公司，或着像Zoom这家提供视频会议技术支持的企业一样。或者其他类型。

词汇

Unicorn/独角兽

Purveyor/承办商；供应货物或提供服务的人或公司

Emulate/仿真；模仿；尽力赶上

less exposed/ [保险]损失可能性小

As is often the case in Silicon Valley, hype springs eternal, fuelled by big numbers from consultancies. IDC reckons that spending on big-data and business-analytics software will reach $67bn this year. But it will, boosters say, at last allow businesses to see the computer age in their productivity statistics, freeing them from the shadow of Robert Solow, a Nobel-prizewinning economist, who in 1987 observed that investment in information technology appeared to do little to make companies more efficient. Just as electricity enabled the assembly line in the 19th century, since machines no longer had to be grouped around a central steam engine, data-analytics companies promise to usher in the assembly lines of the digital economy, distributing data-crunching capacity where it is needed. They may also, as George Gilbert, a veteran business-IT analyst, observes, help all kinds of firm create the same network effects behind the rise of the tech giants: the better they serve their customers, the more data they collect, which in turn improves their services, and so on.

就像硅谷经常出现的情况一样，咨询公司的大量数据推动着持久不息的宣传。IDC估计，今年大数据和商业分析软件的支出将达到670亿美元。但支持者表示，这将最终让企业从生产率统计数据中看到计算机时代，从而摆脱诺贝尔经济学奖得主罗伯特•索洛(Robert Solow)的阴影。1987年，索洛曾指出，信息技术方面的投资似乎无助于提高企业效率。正如电力在19世纪使装配线成为可能一样，由于机器不再必须围绕一个中央蒸汽机分组，数据分析公司承诺将引入数字经济的装配线，在需要的地方分配数据处理能力。正如资深商业it分析师乔治•吉尔伯特所观察到的那样，他们还可能帮助各种各样的公司在科技巨头崛起的背后创造出同样的网络效应:为客户提供的服务越好，他们收集的数据就越多，而这些数据反过来又改善了他们的服务，等等。

词汇

Hype/大肆宣传

Consultants at Gartner recently calculated that in 2021 “AI augmentation” will create $2.9trn of “business value” and save 6.2bn man-hours globally. A survey by McKinsey last year estimated that AI analytics could add around $13trn, or 16%, to annual global GDP by 2030. Retail and logistics stand to gain most (see chart 2).

Gartner的咨询师最近计算，到2021年，“人工智能增强”将创造2.9万亿美元的“商业价值”，并在全球节省62亿工时。麦肯锡去年的一项调查估计，到2030年，人工智能分析将为全球年度GDP增加约13万亿美元（16%）。零售业和物流业将获得最多利润(见表2)。

Data analytics have a long way to go before they live up to these expectations. Extracting and analysing data from countless sources and connected devices—the “Internet of Things”—is difficult and costly. Although most firms boast of having conjured up AI “platforms”, few of these meet the usual definition of that term, typically reserved for things like Apple’s and Google’s smartphone operating systems, which allow developers to build compatible apps easily.

在达到这些期望之前，数据分析还有很长的路要走。从数不清的资源和连接设备(“物联网”)中提取和分析数据是困难和昂贵的。尽管大多数公司都吹嘘自己创造出了人工智能“平台”，但很少有公司能达到这个词的通常定义，通常指的是苹果(Apple)和谷歌的智能手机操作系统，这些操作系统允许开发者轻松构建兼容的应用程序。

An AI platform would automatically translate raw data into an algorithm-friendly format and offer a set of software-design tools that even people with limited coding skills could use. Many companies, including Palantir, the biggest unicorn in the data-analytics herd, sell high-end customised services—equivalent to building an operating system from scratch for every client. Cloud-computing giants such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud offer standardised products for their corporate customers but, as Jim Hare of Gartner explains, these are considerably less sophisticated and lock users into their networks.

人工智能平台会自动将原始数据转换成一种算法友好的格式，并提供一套软件设计工具，即使是编程能力有限的人也可以使用这些工具。包括数据分析领域最大的独角兽Palantir在内的许多公司都销售高端定制服务——相当于为每个客户从零开始构建一个操作系统。亚马逊网络服务、微软云和谷歌云计算等云计算巨头为企业客户提供标准化产品，但正如Gartner的吉姆•黑尔(Jim Hare)所解释的那样，这些公司的产品要简单得多，而且会将用户锁定在自己的网络中。

The enterprising Mr Siebel

富有进取心的希贝尔先生

Enter C3.ai, founded to help utilities manage electric grids, a complex problem that involves collecting and processing data from many sources. After its near-bankruptcy, advances in machine learning, sensors and data connectivity gave it a new lease of life—and allowed it to repackage its products for a range of industries. Crucially for corporate clients, C3’s approach grew out of Mr Siebel’s experience with enterprise software. He wanted to make data analytics hassle-free for corporate clients, without sacrificing sophistication.

走进C3.ai，该企业建立的初衷就是为了帮助公用事业公司管理电网，这是一个复杂的问题，涉及从许多来源收集和处理数据。在濒临破产之后，机器学习、传感器和数据连接方面的进步赋予了它新的生命力，并使其能够为一系列行业重新包装产品。对企业客户来说，至关重要的是，C3的方法源于希贝尔对企业软件的经验。他希望在不牺牲复杂性的前提下，让企业客户无需费力地进行数据分析。

词汇

hassle-free/轻而易举的毫无麻烦的

3M, an American conglomerate, employs C3 software to pick out potentially contentious invoices to pre-empt complaints. The United States Air Force uses it to work out which parts of an aircraft are likely to fail soon. C3 is helping Baker Hughes to develop analytics tools for the oil-and-gas industry (General Electric, the oil-services firm’s parent company, has struggled to perfect an analytics platform of its own, called Predix).

3M，一家美国的综合企业，使用C3软件来挑选潜在的有争议的发票，以先发制人。美国空军用它来计算飞机的哪些部件可能很快会出现故障。C3公司正在帮助Baker Hughes为油气行业开发分析工具(通用电气，这家石油服务公司的母公司，一直在努力完善自己的分析平台Predix)。

词汇

Conglomerate/企业集团

Contentious/诉讼的；有异议的

Invoice/发票，单据

C3’s chief rival in building a bona fide AI platform is not Big Tech or the very biggest data-analytics unicorns. It is a company called Databricks. It was founded in 2013 by computer wizards who developed Apache Spark, an open-source program which can handle reams of data from sensors and other connected devices in real time. Databricks expanded Spark to handle more data types. It sells its services chiefly to startups (such as Hotels.com, a travel site) and media companies (Viacom). It says it will generate $200m in revenue this year and was valued at $2.8bn when it last raised capital in February.

C3在打造真正的人工智能平台方面的主要竞争对手不是大型科技公司，也不是最大的数据分析独角兽公司。这是一家叫做Databricks的公司。2013年，计算机奇才们开发了Apache Spark，这是一个开源程序，可以实时处理来自传感器和其他连接设备的大量数据。Databricks扩展了Spark来处理更多的数据类型。它主要向初创公司(如旅游网站Hotels.com)和媒体公司(维亚康姆)出售服务。该公司表示，今年将实现2亿美元的收入，上一次融资是在今年2月，当时的估值为28亿美元。

Though C3’s and Databricks’ niches do not overlap much at the moment, they may do in the future. Their approaches differ, too, reflecting their roots. Databricks, born of abstruse computer science, helps clients deploy open-source tools effectively. Like most enterprise-software firms, C3 sells proprietary applications. 

虽然C3和Databricks的利基市场目前没有太多重叠，但将来可能会重叠。他们的方向也不同，这也反映了他们的源头（的区别）。Databricks起源于深奥的计算机科学，帮助客户有效地部署开源工具。与大多数企业软件公司一样，C3也销售专有应用程序。

It is unclear which one will prevail; at the moment the two firms are neck-and-neck. In the near term, the market is big enough for both—and more. In the longer run, someone will come up with AI-assisted data analytics that are no more taxing than using a spreadsheet. It could be C3 or Databricks, or smaller rivals like Dataiku from New York or Domino Data Lab in San Francisco, which are also busily erecting AI platforms. The field’s other unicorns are unlikely to give up trying. And incumbent tech titans like Amazon, Google and Microsoft want to dominate all sorts of software, including advanced data analytics.

目前还不清楚哪一方会胜出;目前这两家公司势均力敌。在短期内，这个市场足够容纳这两家公司，甚至更多。从长远来看，有人将提出人工智能辅助的数据分析，这并不比使用电子表格更费力。它可以是C3或Databricks，也可以是规模较小的竞争对手，如纽约的Dataiku或旧金山的Domino Data Lab，他们也在忙于搭建人工智能平台。该领域的其他独角兽不太可能放弃尝试。而现有的科技巨头如亚马逊、谷歌和微软想要主导所有种类的软件，包括高级数据分析。

词汇

Prevail/  盛行，流行

Incumbent/现任的；依靠的；负有职责的

Mr Siebel would be the first to admit that this scramble is likely to claim victims. But it certainly bodes well for buyers of data-analytics software, which is likely to become as familiar to corporate IT departments in the 2020s as customer-relations programs are today. 

希贝尔先生将是第一个承认这种争夺很可能造成受害者的人。但对于数据分析软件的买家来说，这无疑是个好兆头。在本世纪20年代，企业it部门很可能会像今天的客户关系项目一样熟悉数据分析软件。