2020 may be the most complicated and unspeakable year in the past decade. It has brought devastating blows and disastrous consequences to many industries, but on the other hand, it has provided fertile soil for some enterprises to revive and even flourish.
Now it is time to review the past and predict the future once a year. However, in the field of science and technology, forecasting the future seems to be of little significance.
Forecasts inevitably fall through. As in the beginning of 2020, no one can predict the emergence of the epidemic. The epidemic has forced people to adapt to the work at home culture at an astonishing speed, and has increasingly rapidly transformed people's lives towards comprehensive digital transformation.
But there is no doubt that science and technology is everything, whether now or in the future. Technology has changed everything. With the laying of optical fiber, the popularity of 5G and more satellite groups entering Earth orbit, the biggest change will come next year: millions of people around the world have digital rights, and the digital world of those who are lucky enough to have lightning speed will be more colorful.
Next, let's review the major scientific and technological events in 2020 with our editor, and make a preliminary outlook on the scientific and technological trends in 2021.
1. 2020 full of magic realism
Video conference of "soaring" under the influence of epidemic situation
As a video conferencing company, Zoom This word has been compared with Google As a verb. As working at home has become a new trend, Zoom has also become the biggest winner, with its market value soaring. Eric Yuan, the founder of the company, also rose from $4 billion to $18 billion. Guess what is the popular phrase of the year—— "You didn't turn on the microphone!"
However, with the growing popularity of Zoom, there are more and more problems exposed on the platform, especially security problems, which have attracted users' concerns and regulators' attention. Fortunately, Zoom quickly took action to improve platform security; In addition, Microsoft 、 Cisco And Google also bring more video conference options to users. In China, tencent Application systems such as conferences and staples are also expanding. However, up to now, Zoom is still the most popular platform for holding remote conferences and online classes.
"Sword of Damocles" is finally waving to the rapidly expanding technology giant
In November, Apple , Microsoft Amazon , Alphabet (the parent company of Google) and Facebook The combined market value of these five technology giants has exceeded 12 trillion dollars, because investors believe that technology giants can be more capable than any other company to survive the COVID-19 crisis safely. In 2021, the major risk faced by these technology giants is their investigation, because politicians and regulators in the United States and Europe want to restrict the influence of technology giants.
In October this year, the U.S. Department of Justice joined 11 state attorneys general in bringing a lawsuit against Google. Later, three states, including California, joined the lawsuit. This lawsuit is the most important American monopoly lawsuit since Microsoft's anti-monopoly lawsuit more than 20 years ago, and has similarities with the lawsuit more than 20 years ago; It is also the first antitrust lawsuit launched against Google this year.
Following the lawsuit of the Ministry of Justice, 38 state attorneys general jointly sued Google in December, and 10 state attorneys general led by Texas also sued Google in the same month. Then, FTC and New York led states also launched antitrust lawsuits against Facebook.
In addition to Google and Facebook, congressional investigators have spent months investigating the two technology giants, Apple and Amazon. More lawsuits may be filed in the future.
In July this year, the chief executives of Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple, the four technology giants, made their first simultaneous appearance to participate in the antitrust hearing held by the Congress. This antitrust hearing of the four major technology giants may mark the beginning of anti-monopoly law enforcement against Internet technology giants in the United States.
In the antitrust investigation, a large wave of technology companies are facing the high tax environment in California and are planning to leave Silicon Valley, including Oracle , HPE and even Elon Musk are planning to move to Texas.
On December 15, the EU will announce a new draft of the Digital Services Act to strengthen the supervision of technology giants, which is another blockbuster after the introduction of the General Digital Protection Regulations (GDPR).
Of course, China has not missed this tide of anti-monopoly.
On November 10, the China Market Supervision Administration publicly solicited opinions on the "Anti monopoly Guidelines in the Platform Economy". On December 14, the General Administration of Market Supervision issued a notice, according to Articles 48 and 49 of the Anti monopoly Law, imposing an administrative penalty of 500000 yuan on three cases of Ali's investment in the acquisition of Yintai Department Store, Yuewen Group's acquisition of Xinli Media and Fengchao Network's acquisition of China Post Zhidi. December 24, according to the new Huashi According to the tip off, the China Market Supervision Administration Alibaba The Group Holding Co., Ltd. carried out "one out of two" and other suspected monopolistic conduct investigation. On December 29, China Economic Weekly reported that Meituan was subject to an antitrust lawsuit due to the cancellation of Alipay channel.
Success and failure of streaming media
In 2020, almost everyone will be isolated at home and can only lie on the sofa to pass the time. Take this opportunity, Netflix The number of subscribers worldwide is expected to exceed 200 million by the end of this year. Followed by competitors Disney It is also expected that the scale of its Plus service will triple to 250 million users by 2024.
If Netflix and Disney are the biggest winners in the streaming media war this year, the mobile video service Quibi is the biggest loser. Quibi, which has been developing for only half a year, announced the permanent closure of the platform in October this year, and said that the sudden decline of people's travel time during the epidemic was the main factor leading to the failure of Quibi. Chain theaters also lost miserably, including warner Production companies, including Brothers and Disney, have chosen to release films online. This year, the battle field between the Christmas blockbuster Warner's "Wonder Woman 1984" and Disney's "Strange Journey of the Soul" has also moved from the traditional cinema to HBO Max and Disney Plus.
On the other hand, various video platforms in China have also made every effort to break through this streaming media battle this year. First IQIYI And Tencent tried to pay for on-demand online broadcast of various TV dramas and movies, and in November, they said they would raise or plan to raise membership fees to explore new business models. Then, on December 14, Ali announced that it would invest 6.2 billion yuan in mango hypermedia. The byte beating also means that it plans to invest 5 billion to 6 billion yuan next year to launch watermelon and other long videos. Station B Also with "Houlang", New Year's Gala and other popular works out of the circle. However, it seems that Tencent Video and iQIYI will still rely on their membership and content advantages to secure their positions in the first echelon in a short time; However, the joint development of Youku and Mango TV may realize curve overtaking. The second and third echelon platforms represented by station B will continue to shine in the existing track, so as to obtain the capital's expectation for it to gradually increase.
"Crazy" and dangerous electric vehicles
This year, electric vehicle manufacturing companies Tesla The biggest splash in 2020. On December 21, Tesla officially joined the S&P 500 index, the barometer of the US capital market, and welcomed the news that Apple wanted to build its own cars. It is reported that Apple intends to launch the electric car "Apple Car" before 2024, which seems to compete with Tesla Haosheng.
In addition, affected by the epidemic, after the central banks of various countries released water, electric vehicles with large imagination space and large changes in the interest pattern became the hot spot of capital pursuit. Tesla's share price soared and its market value once rose to $600 billion, almost equal to the sum of the market values of the eight traditional automobile manufacturers. In addition, China's new car making force Wei Lai The stock prices of Automobiles, Ideal Automobiles and Xiaopeng Automobiles are also doubling, with the annual increases reaching 1230.37%, 254.96% and 319.14% respectively.
However, compared with the crazy share price, the sales of the new force of car building are not so outstanding. Although the year-on-year and month on month growth rates are also very fast, the total sales are still very small. Even Tesla, which has the largest sales volume, is expected to achieve only 500000 sales this year. Compared with traditional car companies, it is just a model, even worse.
In addition, although Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has vowed that the company will launch fully autonomous cars in 2021. However, he may break his promise. Tesla is indeed testing "fully automated driving" software. But even if Tesla releases the fully automated driving software in 2021, the driver will still bear legal and actual responsibilities after the accident. As long as this fact remains unchanged, it is impossible for a Tesla to fully realize automatic driving.
Uber also announced in December that it would abandon the plan to develop autonomous cars. However, Zoox, which Amazon bought in June this year for $1.2 billion, has just launched Robotaxi. Robotaxidoes not have a steering wheel, but it can be recharged for one day and one night.
Best Technology Tools in 2020
In 2020, gamers will gain a lot, and two new generation game consoles will be released one after another - PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X. Oculus will also release the next generation VR headwear device Quest 2.
Nintendo However, its Switch is still the highest selling game console in the United States for 24 consecutive months. According to the data of NPD Group, in the first 11 months of 2020, the sales volume of switches in the United States will reach 6.92 million.
In March, the real world was in chaos due to the sudden epidemic. Nintendo's new island simulation game Gather! Animal Forest Friends entered the hearts of exhausted and lost people. Nintendo said that since its release on March 30, it has sold 26 million units of "Gather! Animal Forest Friends", which has also driven the sales of the game console Switch.
In terms of smart phones, Apple released the iPhone 12, Microsoft released the expensive dual screen phone Surface Duo, and Samsung released the foldable screen phone Galaxy Z Fold 2. Apple has set a new standard for the battery life and performance of notebook computers by using the MacBook with the M1 chip developed by the company itself. The company also launched the AirPods Max earmuff headset. Finally, Samsung made bold innovations in traditional TV and launched the rotatable Sero TV, trying to redefine the TV in the era of smart phones.
Technology IPO goes upstream
Although this year is full of uncertainty, there are still 65 technology companies listed in 2020, which inevitably reminds people of the Internet bubble in that year. Cloud computing company Snowflake and delivery application DoorDash The performance of Airbnb is good, and Airbnb's achievements are even more dazzling. Airbnb's share price doubled on the first day of its listing in December.
At the same time, although the intensification of COVID-19 has slowed down cross-border business activities. However, Chinese enterprises are still enthusiastic about going to the US for IPO. According to the data of Renaissance Capital, an IPO research company, as of December 17, Chinese enterprises had conducted 30 IPOs in the United States, raising a total of $11.7 billion in capital. Among them, financial technology company Lufax and online real estate platform shell Ranked among the top ten US IPOs this year. The well-known Chinese technology enterprises that IPO in the United States this year also include local instant retail distribution platforms Dada , electric vehicle startup Xiaopeng, Ideal, online education platform Education together Vertical community holding company Blue City Brothers Etc.
A year witnessing breakthroughs in vaccines and artificial intelligence
Science and technology has made the greatest technological achievement in 2020, which is to develop, produce and distribute safe vaccines in a very short time. Moreover, technological achievements are more and more closely related to scientific and technological progress. DeepMind, a British artificial intelligence company, announced that it can predict the protein structure, and this breakthrough can greatly accelerate the research and development of new drugs. GPT-3 is a new language generation model, which is similar to human intelligence and also causes a sensation in the field of artificial intelligence.
2. 2021, which is expected and feared
Space roaming 2021 is about to start
It is reported that OneWeb, a British satellite operator, resumed its satellite launch plan this month. The company is planning to put 650 satellites into Earth orbit by 2022 to establish a global broadband network. SpaceX is also testing satellite network services in the United States, and is expected to achieve global coverage in 2021. All fiber and 5G coverage is rapidly expanding. AST SpaceMobile is working with Vodafone The cooperation promises to provide 1.6 billion people in the equatorial region with Internet connection services from space by 2023. This may change the enterprise, education and business model in the developing market. In addition, NOKIA 4G network is being deployed on the moon. According to Xinhua News Agency, China's Chang'e-5 lunar probe was successfully launched on November 24 and returned on December 17.
Video conference is the platform
In 2021, the development of remote video conference will not be limited to more fancy functions and emoticons. Zoom already regards it as a platform. It is reported that Zoom is planning to integrate calendar and email services on the platform. Microsoft has also added the "Together Mode" option to Skype, breaking the original grid view so that everyone can feel that they are in the same room, the same coffee shop, etc.
Streaming media will become the battlefield of games
Although video service has always been the focus of this year, the game streaming battle may be decided in 2021. Facebook Gaming is expected to launch a more mature platform to compete with Google's Stadia and Microsoft's xCloud. In addition, it is reported that Apple plans to upgrade Apple TV in 2021, focusing more on the game field, and equipped with new remote controls and processors.
Pending semiconductor transactions
This year, Nvidia's US $40 billion acquisition of Arm shocked the entire semiconductor industry, because after the acquisition, the neutrality of key chip design suppliers in the industry may be threatened. At present, the prospect of acquisition is still unclear. The US may soon approve the transaction, but the UK, the EU and China may raise objections, and Nvidia's competitors will also lobby vigorously to block the transaction.
Upcoming IPO
In 2021, the number of IPOs of large technology companies will decrease, but the companies that are going to be listed are still promising. First, the cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase has submitted the prospectus secretly and will be listed in 2021. After that, the game platform Roblox, electric scooter service Lime, payment service Stripe and trading application Robinhood will also be listed in succession. In addition, according to 36 krypton It is reported that China's short video platform Fasthand is expected to be launched on February 5, 2021. Bloomberg reported that the head of China's online tutoring platform, Education, is considering going to the United States for IPO next year.
Some technology giants will settle with the EU
It is reported that among the four major technology giants in the United States, there are still Apple and Amazon not facing new antitrust lawsuits in the United States. But in Europe, Amazon has been involved in lawsuits. In 2021, Amazon may be able to reach a deal with the European Union and help the company resolve antitrust allegations in France and Germany. Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, is expected to exceed $200 billion in 2021. (Jun Lin)
