Below is the transcript of a CNBC interview with Edith Yeung, Head, 500 Startups China and CNBC’s Eunice Yoon (I). The interview took place at CNBC’s inaugural tech conference, East Tech West, in Nansha, Guangzhou.
Below is the transcript of a CNBC interview with Edith Yeung, Head, 500 Startups China and CNBC’s Eunice Yoon (I). The interview took place at CNBC’s inaugural tech conference, East Tech West, in Nansha, Guangzhou.
I: Thanks so much, Mandy. Well, as Mandy was just saying, this is Edith Yeung, she is a Partner at 500 Startups, she runs the China program, and has been investing in startups for all sorts of technology, mobile, VR, as well as IoT. And I think maybe what people don’t know about you, is that you have been coming back and forth, between Silicon Valley, where you’re based, and China, for many, many years-,
EY: Yes.
I: So I was wondering, what are you excited about this year?
EY: Um, just to start, Eunice, I really like that one selfie at a-,
I: I know, I know-,
EY: At a time-,
I: We were actually taking a selfie-,
EY: Yeah [laughter] .
I: When she was talking about it. Yeah. One selfie at a time.
EY: Um. I think there’s so many really exciting technology in China in general for us, but for sure AI. You know, the Chinese government actually have publicly stated they want to make sure that China becomes the number one in AI by 2030, and there’s a lot of really interesting things that we are looking at, but more focused on the B2B side of things. If we-, if we look at the internet worldwide, right, so in the US, it’s the FAANG, the Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Google, and in China, there’s the BAT, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, and, plus, don’t forget the TMD, which is Toutiao, Meituan and Didi, these are the internet giants, and they have so much data. So, the way that we look at it, for AI, is there’s no data, there’s no AI, and this I picked up from Kai-Fu, the Founder of Sinovation, he said that now China is the new Saudi Arabia, where you will find the most data-, instead of oil, you-, you find the most data in China-,
I: [Laughter].
EY: But I still find that we want to focus a little bit more on B2B use cases. For example, I just saw this news that Alibaba is launching this hotel, completely autonomous, called Flyzoo, um, I just went to Hangzhou, I really wanted to stay there-,
I: Mm-hm.
EY: But apparently they use facial recognition for check-in, a robot then can lead you to the room, and you can use your facial recognition for-, to open the door. It sounds amazing. But then, at the same time, I think, you know, with China, it’s really interesting that, (inaudible) selfie, there are actually so many people travel overseas. I’m a vivid user of iFlytek-,
I: Yeah.
EY: Which I think is so much bigger than Nuance, but-, but for China, um-,
I: This is the translation device-,
EY: And it’s amazing-,
I: Yeah. I know. I know.
EY: Yeah, and-, and, like, I-, I-, I can speak, you know, fluent Cantonese and Mandarin, but my typing is really bad, and iFlytek can recognize all my Cantonese accent down to a T, so most of my Chinese writing on WeChat is completely done by iFlytek, and I just think there’s just so many really creative opportunities, particularly for AI, and then, on top of that, Chinese, in terms of-, food safety is a big issue, so you see, you know, Tencent and Alibaba both partner up with farmers, to-, to actually build the so-called AI pig, and chicken, to literally use IoT device to keep track of the vital signs, on pigs that we will eat, and make sure that food is safe. So, there are so many fun examples, in the area of AI, that is very, very exciting, for early stage investors to look at.
I: So, what is it about China, that makes it so unique, and such a special place, for AI? Why is there so much experimentation here, as opposed to in other countries?
EY: Um, I think that, you know, China is so interesting, because there’s just so much data-,
I: Mm.
EY: Compared to the US, which, obviously, you can argue about data privacy, I don’t want to ignore that, but compared to-, you know, Europe, even more so, with GDPR, so you can see that there is a lot of hurdles to-, because, for AI-,
I: But in China, people are protective of their data, right? It’s not as though-, I mean, I’ve talked to a lot of young people, and they’ll still want to be protective of their data.
EY: Um, I think Chinese people is aware of it, but in general, if you talk to, you know, most of the normal people, they-, they understand that, you know, there could-, you know, big platforms have access to their data, but they’re okay with it, because the national pride-,
I: Mm.
EY: Of wanting to help to be the number one in AI, for the whole of China, that mindset is even greater than, ‘Hey, I just wanted to protect my data.’
I: So, it’s also because it’s a-, a government push, or because of a-, a national issue. Is that-,
EY: Certainly.
I: Yeah.
EY: I think that there are a lot of Chinese citizens that are really proud of the fact that, ‘Hey, we are actually big enough to even be able to compete, or be in the same sentence as the US, in terms of AI,’ and I think it’s just a really exciting time to be in China.
I: So, I wanted to pick up a little bit more on the report that Mandy had talked about, this is a Chinese internet report, and it’s essentially an overview of what’s happening in the landscape here, that just came out this year-,
EY: Yeah.
I: So, the thing that jumped out at me was when you said that the government policy has a visible hand. So, as a VC investor, or as an entrepreneur, how do you work with that? Because you do know that the government policy does influence everything that goes on-,
EY: Yeah.
I: In business or technology here.
EY: Um, so, in the report, which, by the way, the report was really for all my non-Chinese friends-,
I: Mm.
EY: To have a better sense that everything in China is not that scary, it’s actually really exciting to be-, so, to help decipher what’s going on in China, in terms of all these trends that are going on.
