Refusing to Be "strangled", Zilliz Creates a Domestic Open Source Basic Software Model
In 2020, trade frictions between China and the United States occurred frequently, and the US sanctions on China spread from physical objects to the field of technology. The trend of reducing dependence on foreign basic software and seeking technological independence prevailed. Domestic basic software came to the fore from behind the scenes and began to exert its strength.
In early June 2020, as the Sino-US trade friction intensified, the engineering artifact MATLAB numerical modeling software was banned in 13 domestic universities. Then another basic software, the chemistry artifact ChemOffice, began to be strictly investigated for piracy, and the domestic scientific research circle was in a panic for a while.
In addition to the academic field, the industry also has a wide range of reliance on foreign basic software, from cloud infrastructure to databases to operating systems. The ban on basic software has sounded the alarm for domestic companies. If they want to avoid being "strangled",We must achieve technological independence and create domestically produced basic software.
In fact, there are already companies in China that are developing basic software, and Zilliz is one of them.Today we are honored to invite Gu Jun, partner and chief architect of Zilliz,Chat with him about the story of open source.
From Peking University to LF AI, 16 years of deep involvement in data services
In 2004, Gu Jun graduated from Peking University with a degree in computer science and became a production system database administrator at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.This started Gu Jun's indissoluble bond with database services..After that, he worked in IBM, Morgan Stanley, Huawei and other companies, and was responsible for the data center, core database maintenance and optimization of many banks.
According to online statistics, banks are very popular among Peking University graduates, and many Peking University students regard banks as their ideal destination after graduation.Gu Jun, who is also a Peking University graduate and has rich experience in bank database management, chose to go against the trend.
June 2019Gu Jun joined the open source basic software company Zilliz as a partner and chief architect, responsible for the company's open source basic software and vector search engine Milvus .
The change in work content provided Gu Jun with an opportunity to contact the Open Source Foundation.In December 2019, Gu Jun became a voting member of the LF AI Technical Advisory Committee.While representing Milvus and helping Milvus grow, it also helps LF AI expand its external influence.
LF AI stands for Linux Foundation AI Foundation, which is the top foundation in the field of AI under the Linux Foundation.We are committed to creating a sustainable open source AI ecosystem and making it easy to create AI products and services with the help of open source technologies.
In the eyes of Gu Jun, a database engineer, joining the open source cause in this way isIt was "unexpected".
A basic software company that has open source written into its genes
Zilliz, where Gu Jun joined, focuses on developing data science software for the AI and IoT era.
In fields such as data science and AI, open source is a very common practice. At the same time, in the process of developing internal projects, Zilliz also benefited greatly from other open source projects. Therefore, it is a "natural thing" for Zilliz to embrace the open source concept and integrate into the open source community, in Gu Jun's view.
After determining the company's open source strategy, Zilliz made a series of attempts and efforts.
December 17, 2019Zilliz officially becomes a senior member of the LF AI Foundation.
On January 16, 2020 (due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the LF AI approval process was postponed to early April), the LF AI Technical Committee voted toThe feature vector similarity search engine Milvus has officially become an incubation project of the LF AI Foundation.
April 22, Zilliz founder and CEO Xingjue was elected as the new chairman of the board of directors of LF AI (The Linux Foundation AI Foundation). This is the first time that a Chinese representative has held the highest position in the world's top open source AI community.
In the company, people often joke thatZilliz has contributed projects, money, people, and a CEO to the international open source industry.
When talking about Zilliz's future vision and plans in the open source field, Gu Jun said frankly that Zilliz is an open source basic software company, and we believe that open source is the best solution to verify needs and expand developers. The company's future research and development direction will still focus on the global layout of data science.Let the world see that China's open source projects can also be world-class, and help enhance the influence of Chinese companies in the global open source circle.
The first domestic AI data platform is open to the world
Zilliz has elevated open source to a strategic level.The first open source product is the basic software Milvus.
According to IDC, the amount of data generated globally will increase from 33 ZB to 175 ZB between 2018 and 2025.Data exceeding 80% will be unstructured data that is difficult to process.How to process large-scale unstructured data quickly and efficiently has become the key to the healthy development of enterprises.
To this end, Zilliz launched the vector search engine Milvus, which makes it easier for users to calculate and retrieve feature vectors and speed up the processing of unstructured data.
After deciding on the open source route for Milvus, Gu Jun and his team did two preparatory tasks.
First, they sorted out Milvus' source code and documents according to open source conventions and requirements. Then they looked for a suitable world-class open source foundation for Milvus.
In Gu Jun's opinion,Only when the project itself and the external environment are ready,Only then will global developers have the opportunity to understand Milvus, use Milvus, and even contribute to the Milvus project.
In October 2019, Milvus was officially open sourced on GitHub.Within 7 months of its open source release, Milvus attracted more than 300 enterprise-level users. Jiazi Guangnian once described the achievements of Milvus after it was open sourced:Even in the open source market where there is no payment threshold, this speed is still astonishing - PingCAP, a new distributed database company that has been established for five years and has become a sample of Chinese open source projects, took two and a half years to accumulate the first few hundred corporate users.
As of April this year, Milvus has been downloaded more than 20k times.The number of external contributors is about 4 times the number of internal contributors.
Gu Jun, the open source director of Milvus, believes that these gratifying achievements are mainly due to the teamIdentify the value you can bring to your audience.And tailor-made clothes,Different guidance methods are adopted for developers and B-side users.
A domestic software that can enter a world-class open source foundation and create an excellent open source project that is second to none in the international market; when it has industry-leading core technology, it has the courage and confidence to open its source code to developers around the world. Zilliz's far-sighted global development strategy is admirable.
Watch the Open Source Annual Conference and listen to Gu Jun share the story of Milvus
The 2020 China Open Source Conference (COSCon'20), the most influential annual open source event in the industry, will be held on October 24-25.This year's guest sharing will be a combination of online and offline formats, discussing the theme of Open Source for Good from 11 directions including artificial intelligence, open source governance, data technology, education and charity.
On October 25th from 16:50 to 17:30, Gu Jun will give a presentation titled "Milvus: Building Unstructured Data Services" at the COSCon'20 Artificial Intelligence Session.
You canVisit the following link, or clickRead the original articleSign up now. The event is in full swing, and we look forward to your participation!
Registration link or click to read the original text:
https://www.bagevent.com/event/6840909
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