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2020年翻譯資格考試一級筆譯練習(xí)題

Artificial Intelligence: Million-dollar Babies

人工智能：百萬美元寶貝

As Silicon Valley fights for talent, universities struggle to hold on to their stars

硅谷搶奪人才，大學(xué)難留明星學(xué)者

That a computer program can repeatedly beat the world champion at Go, a complex board game, is a coup for the fast-moving field of artificial intelligence (AI). Another high-stakes game, however, is taking place behind the scenes, as firms compete to hire the smartest AI experts. Technology giants, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Baidu, are racing to expand their AI activities. Last year, they spent some $8.5 billion on research, deals and hiring, says Quid, a data firm. That was four times more than in 2010.考生如果怕自己錯(cuò)過考試成績查詢的話，可以 免費(fèi)預(yù)約短信提醒，屆時(shí)會(huì)以短信的方式提醒大家報(bào)名和考試時(shí)間。

計(jì)算機(jī)程序可以反復(fù)戰(zhàn)勝圍棋世界冠軍，這是人工智能這一快速發(fā)展的領(lǐng)域中一項(xiàng)極為難得的成就。然而，隨著各家公司競相把頂尖的人工智能專家招致麾下，另一場高風(fēng)險(xiǎn)游戲正在幕后展開。包括谷歌、Facebook、微軟、百度在內(nèi)的科技巨頭爭相擴(kuò)展其人工智能項(xiàng)目。數(shù)據(jù)公司Quid表示，去年，這些科技公司花費(fèi)了約85億美元用于研究、收購及網(wǎng)羅人才，比2010年多四倍。

In the past universities employed the world’s best AI experts. Now tech firms are plundering departments of robotics and machine learning (where computers learn from data themselves) for the highest-flying faculty and students, luring them with big salaries similar to those fetched by professional athletes.

過去，大學(xué)擁有世界一流的人工智能專家。如今，科技企業(yè)正從大學(xué)的“機(jī)器人及機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)(計(jì)算機(jī)通過數(shù)據(jù)自動(dòng)學(xué)習(xí))”系里搶奪優(yōu)秀師生，以堪比職業(yè)運(yùn)動(dòng)員的高薪做誘餌。

Last year Uber, a taxi-hailing firm, recruited 40 of the 140 staff of the National Robotics Engineering Centre at Carnegie Mellon University, and set up a unit to work on self-driving cars. That drew headlines because Uber had earlier promised to fund research at the centre before deciding instead to peel off its staff. Other firms seek talent more quietly but just as doggedly. The migration to the private sector startles many academics. “I cannot even hold onto my grad students,” says Pedro Domingos, a professor at the University of Washington who specialises in machine learning and has himself had job offers from tech firms. “Companies are trying to hire them away before they graduate.”

美國卡耐基梅隆大學(xué)的國家機(jī)器人工程中心原本有140名教師，去年，打車公司優(yōu)步從中招聘了40人，設(shè)立部門研究自動(dòng)駕駛汽車。此舉惹來關(guān)注，因?yàn)閮?yōu)步之前承諾資助該中心的研究工作，后來卻轉(zhuǎn)而挖角。其他公司尋覓人才的舉動(dòng)則相對低調(diào)，但也同樣執(zhí)著。人才向私營公司的流動(dòng)讓不少學(xué)者感到震驚。“我連自己的研究生也留不住，”華盛頓大學(xué)的佩德羅·多明戈斯教授說道，他是機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)方面的專家，連他自己也收到了科技公司伸出的橄欖枝，“學(xué)生還沒畢業(yè)，那些公司就想把他們聘走?！?/p>

Experts in machine learning are most in demand. Big tech firms use it in many activities, from basic tasks such as spam-filtering and better targeting of online advertisements, to futuristic endeavours such as self-driving cars or scanning images to identify disease. As tech giants work on features such as virtual personal-assistant technology, to help users organise their lives, or tools to make it easier to search through photographs, they rely on advances in machine learning.

機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)領(lǐng)域的專家最為搶手。大型科技公司的許多任務(wù)都要運(yùn)用這一技術(shù)，從一些基本任務(wù)，如過濾垃圾郵件和令網(wǎng)絡(luò)廣告更有針對性，到無人駕駛汽車或掃描圖像來發(fā)現(xiàn)疾病等具有未來色彩的嘗試，無一例外。科技巨頭在研發(fā)一些產(chǎn)品時(shí)要依賴機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)技術(shù)的進(jìn)步，比如幫助用戶安排生活的虛擬個(gè)人助理或是方便人們搜尋圖片的工具。

Tech firms’ investment in this area helps to explain how a once-arcane academic gathering, the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, held each December in Canada, has become the Davos of AI. Participants go to learn, be seen and get courted by bosses looking for talent. Attendance has tripled since 2010, reaching 3,800 last year.

科技公司對這一領(lǐng)域的投資有助解釋為何“神經(jīng)信息處理系統(tǒng)大會(huì)”(每年12月在加拿大舉行)這一曾被視為高深莫測的學(xué)術(shù)會(huì)議如今搖身成為人工智能界的達(dá)沃斯盛會(huì)。與會(huì)者一方面為了學(xué)習(xí)，另一方面也為了被求賢若渴的老板們發(fā)現(xiàn)并追捧。2010年以來，其與會(huì)人數(shù)增加了兩倍，去年達(dá)到3800人。

No reliable statistics exist to show how many academics are joining tech companies. But indications exist. In the field of “deep learning”, where computers draw insights from large data sets using methods similar to a human brain’s neural networks, the share of papers written by authors with some corporate affiliation is up sharply.

學(xué)術(shù)界有多少人轉(zhuǎn)投科技公司的懷抱目前仍無可靠統(tǒng)計(jì)數(shù)據(jù)，但有跡可循?！吧疃葘W(xué)習(xí)”是指計(jì)算機(jī)利用近似人類大腦神經(jīng)網(wǎng)絡(luò)的運(yùn)作方式從大型數(shù)據(jù)集中析取知識，這一范疇的學(xué)術(shù)論文中，在企業(yè)任職的作者比例大幅上升。

Tech firms have not always lavished such attention and resources on AI experts. The field was largely ignored and underfunded during the “AI winter” of the 1980s and 1990s, when fashionable approaches to AI failed to match their early promise. The present machine-learning boom began in earnest when Google started doing deals focused on AI. In 2014, for example, it bought DeepMind, the startup behind the computer’s victory in Go, from researchers in London. The price was rumoured to be around $600m. Around then Facebook, which also reportedly hoped to buy DeepMind, started a lab focused on artificial intelligence and hired an academic from New York University, Yann LeCun, to run it.

科技公司并非一開始就對人工智能專家傾注如此多的心思和資源。在上世紀(jì)八九十年代的“人工智能寒冬”，新潮的人工智能技術(shù)未如預(yù)期，該領(lǐng)域被廣為忽視，資金投入也不足。目前這股“機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)”熱潮是在谷歌開始收購專注人工智能技術(shù)的公司后才真正開啟的。比如，2014年，谷歌從倫敦的研究人員手中收購了DeepMind，這家創(chuàng)業(yè)公司正是人機(jī)圍棋大戰(zhàn)中計(jì)算機(jī)取勝的幕后關(guān)鍵。據(jù)傳當(dāng)時(shí)的收購價(jià)約為六億美元。據(jù)報(bào)道也曾有意收購DeepmMind的Facebook也在差不多同一時(shí)間建起實(shí)驗(yàn)室，專注研發(fā)人工智能技術(shù)，并從紐約大學(xué)請來學(xué)者燕樂存來做負(fù)責(zé)人。

The firms offer academics the chance to see their ideas reach markets quickly, which many like. Private-sector jobs can also free academics from the uncertainty of securing research grants. Andrew Ng, who leads AI research for the Chinese internet giant Baidu and used to teach full-time at Stanford, says tech firms offer two especially appealing things: lots of computing power and large data sets. Both are essential for modern machine learning.

這些公司為學(xué)者們提供機(jī)會(huì)，讓其創(chuàng)意迅速推向市場，往往大受歡迎。私營公司的職位也令學(xué)者們不用擔(dān)心研究經(jīng)費(fèi)不足的問題。之前在斯坦福大學(xué)全職任教的吳恩達(dá)目前效力于中國互聯(lián)網(wǎng)巨頭百度，主管人工智能研究。他表示，科技公司能提供兩個(gè)特別誘人的條件：強(qiáng)大的計(jì)算能力和龐大的數(shù)據(jù)集。這兩者為現(xiàn)代機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)研究必不可少。

All that is to the good, but the hiring spree could also impose costs. One is that universities, unable to offer competitive salaries, will be damaged if too many bright minds are either lured away permanently or distracted from the lecture hall by commitments to tech firms. Whole countries could suffer, too. Most big tech firms have their headquarters in America; places like Canada, whose universities have been at the forefront of AI development, could see little benefit if their brightest staff disappear to firms over the border, says Ajay Agrawal, a professor at the University of Toronto.

這些都是好的方面，但挖角熱潮也有代價(jià)。一方面，大學(xué)由于無法提供具有競爭力的薪酬，假如過多優(yōu)秀人才被誘走，一去不返，或是忙于服務(wù)科技公司而無法專心講學(xué)，大學(xué)將蒙受損失。同時(shí)，一些國家也可能遭罪。大型科技公司總部多在美國;像加拿大這樣的國家，其大學(xué)一直處于人工智能研發(fā)的前沿，如果他們最聰明的人才都被境外公司吸引走，對本國實(shí)在毫無益處，多倫多大學(xué)的阿杰伊·阿格拉沃爾教授說道。

Another risk is if expertise in AI is concentrated disproportionately in a few firms. Tech companies make public some of their research through open sourcing. They also promise employees that they can write papers. In practice, however, many profitable findings are not shared. Some worry that Google, the leading firm in the field, could establish something close to an intellectual monopoly. Anthony Goldbloom of Kaggle, which runs data-science competitions that have resulted in promising academics being hired by firms, compares Google’s pre-eminence in AI to the concentration of talented scientists who laboured on the Manhattan Project, which produced America’s atom bomb.

另一風(fēng)險(xiǎn)是人工智能技術(shù)過度集中于少數(shù)企業(yè)手中?？萍脊就ㄟ^開源方式公開其部分研究成果。它們也答應(yīng)員工可以撰寫論文。然而，實(shí)際上，許多有利可圖的研究成果并未共享。有人擔(dān)心，作為人工智能界領(lǐng)頭羊的谷歌可能形成近乎知識壟斷的地位。Kaggle是組織數(shù)據(jù)學(xué)競賽的平臺，不少公司通過這些比賽搜羅學(xué)術(shù)新星，該平臺的安東尼·古德魯姆將谷歌在人工智能上的卓越表現(xiàn)與當(dāng)年集結(jié)眾多科學(xué)英才在曼哈頓計(jì)劃中努力工作相提并論。該計(jì)劃最終為美國造出原子彈。

2020年翻譯資格考試一級筆譯練習(xí)題

Office Communication: The Slack Generation

辦公通訊：Slack一代

How workplace messaging could replace other missives

職場通訊工具如何取代其他溝通形式

Stewart Butterfield, the boss of Slack, a messaging company, has been wonderfully unlucky in certain ventures. In 2002, he and a band of colleagues created an online-video game called “Game Neverending”. It never took off, but the tools they used to design it turned into Flickr, the web’s first popular photo-sharing website. Yahoo bought it in 2005 for a reported $35m.考生如果怕自己錯(cuò)過考試成績查詢的話，可以 免費(fèi)預(yù)約短信提醒，屆時(shí)會(huì)以短信的方式提醒大家報(bào)名和考試時(shí)間。

通訊工具公司Slack的老板斯圖爾特·巴特菲爾德在一些創(chuàng)業(yè)經(jīng)歷中上可謂因禍得福。2002年，他和一群同事創(chuàng)辦了名為“游戲無止境”的網(wǎng)絡(luò)視頻游戲。該產(chǎn)品并未成功，但他們用來設(shè)計(jì)游戲的工具后來卻發(fā)展成為互聯(lián)網(wǎng)首個(gè)廣受歡迎的照片分享網(wǎng)站Flickr，后于2005年被雅虎收購，據(jù)稱出價(jià)達(dá)3500萬美元。

Four years later Mr. Butterfield tried to create another online game, called Glitch. It flopped as well. But Mr. Butterfield and his team developed an internal messaging system to collaborate on it, which became the basis for Slack. In Silicon Valley, such a change in strategy is called a “pivot”; anywhere else it is called good fortune. Today, Slack is one of the fastest-rising startups around, with $540m in funding and a valuation of around $3.8 billion. “I guess the lesson should be, pursue your dream and hope it fails, so you can do something else,” says Cal Henderson, Slack’s chief technology officer.

四年后，巴特菲爾德試圖創(chuàng)辦另一款名為Glitch的網(wǎng)絡(luò)游戲，同樣以失敗告終。但巴特菲爾德和他的團(tuán)隊(duì)在創(chuàng)業(yè)過程中開發(fā)了一個(gè)內(nèi)部通訊系統(tǒng)用于協(xié)作，奠定了Slack的基礎(chǔ)。在硅谷，這種戰(zhàn)略上的轉(zhuǎn)變被稱為“轉(zhuǎn)型”，要是放在其他任何地方都會(huì)被稱為運(yùn)氣。今天，Slack已成為上升最快的創(chuàng)業(yè)公司之一，融資5.4億美元，估值約為38億美元。“我想這給我們的經(jīng)驗(yàn)是，追逐夢想，希望夢想失敗，這樣你就可以做點(diǎn)兒別的了?！盨lack的首席技術(shù)官卡爾·亨德森說道。

It is rare for business software to arouse emotion besides annoyance. But some positively gush about how Slack has simplified office communication. Instead of individual e-mails arriving in a central inbox and requiring attention, Slack structures textual conversations within threads (called “channels”) where groups within firms can update each other in real time. It is casual and reflects how people actually communicate, eschewing e-mail’s outdated formalities, says Chris Becherer of Pandora, an online-music firm that uses Slack.

辦公軟件很少能喚起什么情緒，除了厭煩之外。但有人對Slack贊不絕口，稱其簡化了辦公通訊。Slack不是把電子郵件都堆在一個(gè)收件箱里讓人處理，而是按話題(稱為“頻道”)組織文本對話，便于公司中的團(tuán)隊(duì)實(shí)時(shí)溝通。這種形式較為隨意，反映出人們的實(shí)際溝通方式，并且避免了電子郵件那套過時(shí)的形式，在線音樂公司潘多拉的克里斯·貝赫勒說道，該公司就使用Slack進(jìn)行辦公通訊。

Its other selling-point is efficiency. A survey of users, admittedly conducted by the firm itself, suggests that team productivity increases by around a third when they start using the software, primarily by reducing internal e-mail and meetings. Slack has decided to open itself up to other apps, becoming a platform by which employees can log into and use other software tools. Today it has 2.7m daily active users, up from 1m last June. Around 800,000 of them are paying subscribers; their firms pay around $80 or more a year for each employee using the service. The firm has $75m in annual recurring revenue and is breaking even, says Mr. Butterfield.

它的另一個(gè)賣點(diǎn)是效率。Slack自己做的用戶調(diào)查顯示，在使用該軟件后，團(tuán)隊(duì)效率提升近三分之一，主要是由于內(nèi)部郵件及會(huì)議的減少。Slack已決定向其他應(yīng)用開放，成為企業(yè)員工可以登陸并使用其他軟件工具的平臺。去年六月時(shí)，該軟件的日活躍用戶為100萬，目前已上升至270萬，其中約有80萬是付費(fèi)用戶，公司為每位使用服務(wù)的員工支付至少80美元的年費(fèi)。巴特菲爾德表示，Slack的年度經(jīng)常性收入為7500萬美元，公司正逐漸實(shí)現(xiàn)收支平衡。

Slack’s rise points to three important changes in the workplace. First, people are completing work across different devices from wherever they are, so they need software that can work seamlessly on mobile devices. Messaging naturally lends itself to this format. Second, communication is becoming more open. Just as offices went from closed, hived-off rooms to open-plan, Slack is the virtual equivalent, fostering a collaborative work environment, says Venkatesh Rao of Ribbonfarm, a consultancy. Slack’s default setting is to make conversations public within a firm.

Slack的崛起昭示著職場的三個(gè)重要變化。首先，人們現(xiàn)在會(huì)在不同地點(diǎn)，通過各種設(shè)備來完成工作，所以他們需要能在移動(dòng)設(shè)備上無縫運(yùn)作的軟件。發(fā)送消息天生適合這種形式。第二，通訊正變得越來越開放。正如辦公室從封閉小隔間變?yōu)殚_放式空間一樣，Slack在虛擬領(lǐng)域引領(lǐng)著同樣的變革，打造協(xié)同工作環(huán)境，咨詢公司Ribbonfarm的文卡泰什·拉奧說道。Slack的默認(rèn)設(shè)置就是讓員工在公司內(nèi)公開對話。

Third, software firms are trying to automate functions that used to be done by people in order to make employees more productive. Slack has made a big push into “bots”, algorithms that can automate menial tasks which used to be done by humans. Slack offers bots that compile lunch orders and projects’ progress reports, or generate analytics on demand. In the future employees will be able to chat with software agents to get more done, working alongside bots as well as their peers.

第三，軟件公司正嘗試把以往需要人工處理的職能自動(dòng)化，借此提高員工的工作效率。Slack已大量運(yùn)用“機(jī)器人”， 這些算法可以自動(dòng)完成以往需要人工處理的低級工作。Slack提供的機(jī)器人服務(wù)包括確定午餐訂單，編寫項(xiàng)目進(jìn)度報(bào)告，以及按需生成分析等。未來，員工將可與“軟件員工”對話，與這些機(jī)器人和同事并肩工作，取得更多成果。

Mr. Butterfield is not the typical leader of a striving startup. Called “Dharma” by his hippie parents, he spent his early years on a commune with no running water or electricity; he changed his name to Daniel Stewart when he was 12. A self-professed introvert, which is fitting for a company that sells itself on textual communication, he values efficiency and candour. After Yahoo bought Flickr, he worked there for a few years. “Everything was horrible, ugly, slow, difficult to use and confusing,” he says, frankly.

巴特菲爾德不是那種典型的拼搏型創(chuàng)業(yè)企業(yè)領(lǐng)袖。被嬉皮士父母稱為“達(dá)摩”的他，早年生活在一個(gè)沒有自來水或電力的公社中;12歲的時(shí)候他把自己的名字改為丹尼爾·斯圖爾特。他自稱性格內(nèi)向——這恰恰適合靠文本通訊謀生的公司——并且珍視效率和坦誠。雅虎收購Flickr之后，他在那里工作了幾年。“一切都很可怕、丑陋、緩慢、難用、混亂?！彼敛谎陲椀卣f道。

Dharma chameleon

達(dá)摩變色龍

In retrospect, Flickr was sold too soon. The sale marked the beginning of the technology industry’s resurgence after its crash in the early 2000s. Now, Mr. Butterfield has a second chance. Investors do not want to see him sell Slack too early. Earlier this year there were reports that Microsoft considered bidding around $8 billion for the company. Mr. Butterfield says that Slack has never received a formal offer from anyone and is planning to go public. Last year it started submitting itself to voluntary audits, in what appears to be preparation for a public debut. But it seems even more likely that a large tech giant will see the strategic value of Slack and try to snap it up first for an even splashier sum.

回想起來，當(dāng)年賣Flickr賣得太早了。那一次并購標(biāo)志著科技產(chǎn)業(yè)在經(jīng)歷21世紀(jì)初崩潰后的復(fù)蘇。如今巴特菲爾德有了第二次機(jī)會(huì)。投資者不愿意看到他過早賣掉Slack。今年早些時(shí)候有報(bào)道稱，微軟考慮出價(jià)80億美元收購該公司。巴特菲爾德則表示從未收到任何人的正式報(bào)價(jià)，而公司正計(jì)劃上市。去年，公司做了一次外部審計(jì)，似乎是為公開上市準(zhǔn)備。但貌似可能性更大的是某家科技巨頭會(huì)意識到Slack的戰(zhàn)略價(jià)值，以更高的出價(jià)搶先將其收歸麾下。

Mr. Butterfield says that Slack could achieve $10 billion in revenue if it signs up 100m knowledge workers, of which there are around 850m worldwide. That is far easier said than done. For one thing, Slack still needs to woo larger companies outside the technology world. Currently it holds particular appeal among workers at firms in the internet, media and advertising industries, and among teams of software developers within larger firms. Conquering traditional businesses may prove harder. Slack’s yearly minimum of $80 per employee is steep for companies with tens of thousands of workers.

巴特菲爾德表示，假如全球約8.5億的知識型勞動(dòng)者中有一億成為Slack的付費(fèi)用戶，那么公司的年收入將達(dá)到100億美元。這說起來容易，實(shí)際難度卻大得多。一方面，Slack還須博取非科技業(yè)大公司的青睞。目前，Slack特別受互聯(lián)網(wǎng)、媒體、廣告公司員工的歡迎，大公司內(nèi)部軟件開發(fā)團(tuán)隊(duì)的員工也很愛用。但征服傳統(tǒng)公司可能會(huì)更難。Slack每人80美元的最低年費(fèi)對擁有數(shù)以萬計(jì)員工的企業(yè)來說是一項(xiàng)不菲的開支。

For another, Slack has rising competition to fend off. Already, rival products are taking aim at the market for workplace collaboration, including one, Atlassian, from an Australian software company, which is called HipChat, and bundled with its other services. There is also Symphony, a rival startup backed by several banks that specialises in highly regulated industries such as financial services, which require more compliance controls. Tech giants such as Microsoft, Oracle and Facebook have collaborative work apps, but these are only modestly successful.

另一方面，Slack還要抵御不斷加劇的競爭。已有不少競爭產(chǎn)品瞄準(zhǔn)辦公協(xié)作的市場，其中包括澳大利亞軟件公司Atlassian推出的HipChat，該產(chǎn)品還捆綁提供公司的其他服務(wù)。另一對手是擁有多家銀行支持的創(chuàng)業(yè)企業(yè)Symphony，其產(chǎn)品專門針對金融服務(wù)等受高度監(jiān)管的行業(yè)而設(shè)，這些行業(yè)要求更多的合規(guī)控制。微軟、甲骨文和Facebook等科技巨頭也有協(xié)同工作應(yīng)用，但都成績有限。

Slack’s greatest challenge may be people’s own habits. To some, its endless stream of chatter may be worse even than e-mail, because the barriers to commenting rapidly are lower. The introverted Mr. Butterfield should welcome the chance to appeal to people who do not want constant interaction, even when it comes in textual form.

Slack面臨的最大挑戰(zhàn)可能是人們自身的習(xí)慣。一些人認(rèn)為，這種沒完沒了地嘮叨也許比電子郵件還要糟糕，因?yàn)椴患偎妓鞯卮蟀l(fā)議論的屏障降低了。內(nèi)向的巴特菲爾德也該考慮怎樣吸引那些不喜歡持續(xù)互動(dòng)的人，即便是以文本形式互動(dòng)。

2020年翻譯資格考試一級筆譯練習(xí)題

Semiconductors: Chips on Their Shoulders

半導(dǎo)體：芯片之重

China wants to become a superpower in semiconductors, and plans to spend colossal sums to achieve this

中國計(jì)劃投入巨資打造半導(dǎo)體超級大國,考生如果怕自己錯(cuò)過考試成績查詢的話，可以 免費(fèi)預(yù)約短信提醒，屆時(shí)會(huì)以短信的方式提醒大家報(bào)名和考試時(shí)間。

The Chinese government has been trying, on and off, since the 1970s to build an indigenous semiconductor industry. But its ambitions have never been as high, nor its budgets so big, as they are now. In an earlier big push, in the second half of the 1990s, the government spent less than $1 billion, reckons Morgan Stanley, an American bank. This time, under a grand plan announced in 2014, the government will muster $100 billion-$150 billion in public and private funds.

自上世紀(jì)70年代起，中國政府就一再努力嘗試打造本土半導(dǎo)體產(chǎn)業(yè)，然而目前其野心之大、預(yù)算之高前所未見。據(jù)美國銀行摩根士丹利估計(jì)，上世紀(jì)90年代的后半段，中國政府大力推動(dòng)半導(dǎo)體產(chǎn)業(yè)時(shí)，投入的資金不到10億美元。而這一次，根據(jù)2014年公布的宏大規(guī)劃，政府將從公共和私募基金籌集1000至1500億美元。

The aim is to catch up technologically with the world’s leading firms by 2030, in the design, fabrication and packaging of chips of all types, so as to cease being dependent on foreign supplies. In 2015 the government added a further target: within ten years it wants to be producing 70% of the chips consumed by Chinese industry.

其目標(biāo)是在2030年前在技術(shù)上趕上世界領(lǐng)先企業(yè)，在各類芯片的設(shè)計(jì)、制造及封裝上達(dá)到先進(jìn)水平，從而不再依賴外國供應(yīng)。2015年，政府又新增目標(biāo)：十年內(nèi)能生產(chǎn)中國產(chǎn)業(yè)所消耗芯片的70%。

It has a long way to go. Last year China’s manufacturers, both domestic and foreign-owned, consumed $145 billion-worth of microchips of all kinds (see chart). But the output of China’s domestic chip industry was only one-tenth of that value. And in some types of high-value semiconductor – the processor chips that are the brains of computers, and the rugged and durable chips that are embedded in cars – virtually all of China’s consumption is imported.

這還有很長的路要走。去年，中國本土及外資制造商共消耗了價(jià)值1450億美元的各類微芯片。但國內(nèi)芯片業(yè)的產(chǎn)值僅為這一數(shù)字的十分之一。而對于某些高價(jià)值半導(dǎo)體(計(jì)算機(jī)核心部件處理器芯片以及堅(jiān)固耐用的嵌入式車用芯片)，中國消費(fèi)的幾乎全是進(jìn)口產(chǎn)品。

To help them achieve their dream, the authorities realise that they must buy as much foreign expertise as they can lay their hands on. In recent months, state-owned firms and various arms of government have been rushing to buy, invest in or do deals with overseas microchip firms. On January 17th the south-western province of Guizhou announced a joint venture with Qualcomm, an American chip designer, to invest around $280m in setting up a new maker of specialist chips for servers. The province’s investment fund will own 55% of the business. Two days earlier, shareholders in Powertech Technology, a Taiwanese firm that packages and tests chips, agreed to let Tsinghua Unigroup, a state-controlled firm from the mainland, buy a 25% stake for $600m.

為實(shí)現(xiàn)夢想，當(dāng)局意識到必須盡可能地從國外購入他們能拿來利用的專業(yè)技術(shù)。近幾個(gè)月來，國有企業(yè)及各類政府機(jī)構(gòu)紛紛收購、投資海外微芯片公司或與其交易。1月17日，中國西南省份貴州宣布與美國芯片設(shè)計(jì)公司高通(Qualcomm)合資2.8億美元，設(shè)立一家生產(chǎn)服務(wù)器專用芯片的新公司。該省的投資基金將持有合資公司55%的股份。此前兩天，臺灣芯片封裝及測試企業(yè)力成科技公司的股東與紫光集團(tuán)達(dá)成協(xié)議，讓這家內(nèi)地國有控股公司以六億美元購入其25%的股份。

Officials argue that developing a home-grown semiconductor industry is a strategic imperative, given the country’s excessive reliance on foreign technology. They can point to the taxpayers’ money that politicians in America, Europe and other parts of Asia have lavished on their domestic semiconductor industries over the years.

官員們認(rèn)為，由于中國過度依賴外國技術(shù)，發(fā)展本土半導(dǎo)體產(chǎn)業(yè)是戰(zhàn)略要?jiǎng)?wù)。他們指出，多年來，歐美及亞洲其他地區(qū)的政客都在各自的本土半導(dǎo)體行業(yè)上大肆揮霍納稅人的錢。

China’s microchip trade gap is, by some estimates, only around half of what the raw figures suggest, since a sizeable proportion of the imported chips that Chinese factories consume go into gadgets, such as Apple’s iPhones and Lenovo’s laptops, that are then exported. Even so, a policy of promoting semiconductors fits with the government’s broader policy of moving from labour-intensive manufacturing to higher-added-value, cleaner industries.

根據(jù)一些估測，中國的微芯片貿(mào)易逆差僅是原始數(shù)據(jù)顯示的一半左右，因?yàn)橹袊S消耗的相當(dāng)大一部分進(jìn)口芯片實(shí)際上被用于蘋果iPhone和聯(lián)想筆記本電腦這類之后又再度出口的電子設(shè)備。即便如此，政府的宏觀政策希望實(shí)現(xiàn)從勞動(dòng)密集型制造業(yè)向更高附加值、更清潔的產(chǎn)業(yè)轉(zhuǎn)型，振興半導(dǎo)體產(chǎn)業(yè)的政策與之吻合。

Morgan Stanley notes that profit margins for successful semiconductor firms are typically 40% or more, whereas the computers, gadgets and other hardware that they go into often have margins of less than 20%. So if Chinese firms designed and made more of the world’s chips, and one day controlled some of the underlying technical standards, as Intel does with personal-computer and server chips, China would enjoy a bigger share of the global electronics industry’s profits.

摩根士丹利指出，成功的半導(dǎo)體公司利潤率一般為40%或以上，而使用半導(dǎo)體芯片的計(jì)算機(jī)、電子設(shè)備及其他硬件企業(yè)往往只有不到20%的利潤率。所以，假如中國公司在全球芯片設(shè)計(jì)和制造中占據(jù)更大份額，并且有朝一日像英特爾在個(gè)人電腦和服務(wù)器芯片領(lǐng)域那樣，控制了其中部分基礎(chǔ)技術(shù)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，那么中國在全球電子行業(yè)的利潤占比將會(huì)更大。

In the government’s earlier efforts to boost domestic manufacturing of solar panels and LED lamps, it spread its largesse among a lot of local firms, resulting in excess capacity and slumping prices. This time it seems to be concentrating its firepower on a more limited group of national champions. For instance, SMIC of Shanghai is set to be China’s champion “foundry” (bulk manufacturer of chips designed by others). And HiSilicon of Shenzhen (part of Huawei, a maker of telecoms equipment) will be one of a select few champions in chip design.

政府之前致力推動(dòng)國內(nèi)生產(chǎn)商制造太陽能電池板及LED燈具，為此大力資助眾多地方企業(yè)，結(jié)果導(dǎo)致產(chǎn)能過剩，價(jià)格暴跌。這次，政府似乎正集中火力資助為數(shù)相對有限的全國性龍頭企業(yè)。比如，上海的中芯國際要成為中國的“代工廠”(批量制造別人設(shè)計(jì)的芯片)領(lǐng)頭羊，而深圳的海思(電信設(shè)備制造商華為的下屬企業(yè))將成為芯片設(shè)計(jì)的少數(shù)領(lǐng)軍企業(yè)之一。

Most intriguing of all, Tsinghua Unigroup, a company spun out of Tsinghua University in Beijing, has emerged in the past year or so as the chosen champion among champions, a Chinese challenger to the mighty Intel. Zhao Weiguo, the firm’s boss, started out herding goats and pigs in Xinjiang, a remote province in north-western China, to where his parents had been exiled in the 1950s, having been labelled as dissidents. After moving to Beijing to study at the university, Mr. Zhao made a fortune in electronics, property and natural resources, before becoming chairman and second-largest shareholder (after the university itself) at Tsinghua Unigroup.

最有趣的是，大概從去年開始，由清華大學(xué)分拆出的企業(yè)紫光集團(tuán)躍升為領(lǐng)軍團(tuán)隊(duì)中的領(lǐng)頭者、一家將和強(qiáng)大的英特爾一爭高下的中國企業(yè)。公司老板趙偉國幼時(shí)在新疆養(yǎng)豬放羊，上世紀(jì)50年代其父母被劃為異見份子而流放到這一西北偏遠(yuǎn)省份。后來，趙偉國來到北京，進(jìn)入清華大學(xué)學(xué)習(xí)，之后在電子、房地產(chǎn)及自然資源行業(yè)發(fā)家致富，目前是紫光集團(tuán)的董事長和第二大股東(清華大學(xué)是頭號股東)。

The company’s emergence from obscurity began in 2013 when it spent $2.6 billion buying two Chinese chip-design firms, Spreadtrum and RDA Microelectronics. In 2014 Intel bought a 20% stake in its putative future rival, for $1.5 billion, as part of a plan for the two to work together on chips for mobile devices, an area in which Intel has lagged behind. In May last year Tsinghua spent $2.3 billion to buy a 51% stake in H3C, a Hong Kong subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard that makes data-networking equipment. And in November it announced a $13 billion share placement to finance the building of a giant memory-chip plant.

該公司在2013年以26億美元購入兩家中國芯片設(shè)計(jì)公司——展訊和銳迪科微電子，自此開始嶄露頭角。2014年，英特爾以15億美元購入這一公認(rèn)未來對手20%的股權(quán)，這是兩者合作開發(fā)移動(dòng)設(shè)備用芯片計(jì)劃的一部分，移動(dòng)芯片是英特爾一直落后的領(lǐng)域。去年5月，紫光集團(tuán)斥資23億美元收購惠普旗下制造數(shù)據(jù)網(wǎng)絡(luò)設(shè)備的香港子公司華三通信51%的股權(quán)。11月，紫光公布130億美元的配股計(jì)劃，準(zhǔn)備融資打造規(guī)模宏大的內(nèi)存芯片工廠。

Shopping for silicon savvy

購買芯片技術(shù)

Other Chinese firms have also been splashing out. Jiangsu Changjiang, a firm that packages chips, paid $1.8 billion in 2014 to gain control of STATS ChipPac, a Singaporean outfit in the same line of business. In 2015 state-controlled JianGuang Asset Management paid a similar sum for a division of NXP of the Netherlands, which makes specialist chips for cell-phone base stations. A group led by China Resources Holdings, another state enterprise, has made a $2.5 billion takeover bid for Fairchild Semiconductor International, an American firm. But the undisputed leader of the “national team” buying up foreign chip know-how is Tsinghua.

其他中國企業(yè)也揮金如土。芯片封裝公司江蘇長江電子科技公司在2014年投資18億美元取得新加坡同行新科金朋的控股權(quán)。2015年，國有控股的建廣資產(chǎn)管理公司以類似金額收購了荷蘭恩智浦公司旗下的手機(jī)基站專用芯片制造部門。另一國有企業(yè)華潤集團(tuán)牽頭的財(cái)團(tuán)已出價(jià)25億美元，希望收購美國公司飛兆半導(dǎo)體。但在收購國外芯片技術(shù)的“國家隊(duì)”中，紫光是無可爭議的領(lǐng)頭羊。

“Many people suspect I’m a ‘white glove’ for the government,” Mr. Zhao declared recently, “but we’re really just a very market-oriented company.” That somewhat understates the official backing that it clearly enjoys: without this, it is hard to imagine the company affording the 300 billion yuan ($45 billion) that Mr. Zhao says Tsinghua plans to spend on further deals over the next five years.

“許多人懷疑我是政府的’白手套’，” 趙偉國最近宣稱，“但我們真的只是非常市場化的公司?！边@么說多少淡化了紫光集團(tuán)享受的政府支持，而這種支持顯而易見，否則難以想象該公司要如何像趙偉國所說的，負(fù)擔(dān)3000億元(450億美元)來完成未來五年的進(jìn)一步收購計(jì)劃。

Chinese approaches to foreign semiconductor firms – unlike its firms’ acquisitions of foreign consumer brands – have not always met with a warm reception. Tsinghua reportedly made a $23 billion bid last year for Micron, a big American maker of DRAM – the type of memory chips used to store data on desktop computers and servers. But the bid faltered because of political opposition. The firm’s overtures to SK Hynix, a South Korean maker of DRAM and flash-memory chips (as used in USB sticks and smartphones), were rebuffed in November. In December Tsinghua bought a 25% stake in Siliconware Precision Industries (SPIL), a Taiwanese chip packager and tester. The resulting political backlash prompted Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE), a bigger Taiwanese chip packager, to launch a takeover bid for SPIL in December. Tsai Ing-wen, the main opposition candidate in Taiwan’s presidential election, declared China’s investments in the island’s chip firms a “very big threat” – and on polling day, January 16th, she emerged the victor.

和收購國外消費(fèi)品牌的情況有所不同，中國企業(yè)在接觸收購海外半導(dǎo)體公司時(shí)并非總是受到熱情相待。據(jù)報(bào)道，紫光集團(tuán)去年出價(jià)230億美元收購美國DRAM(用于臺式電腦及服務(wù)器數(shù)據(jù)存儲(chǔ)的內(nèi)存芯片)大型制造商美光，但由于政治反對而失敗。紫光對韓國DRAM及閃存芯片(用于U盤及智能手機(jī))制造商SK海力士的收購要約也在11月被拒。12月，紫光購入臺灣芯片封裝測試企業(yè)矽品精密工業(yè)25%的股權(quán)。隨之掀起的政治波促使臺灣規(guī)模更大的芯片封裝廠商日月光半導(dǎo)體制造股份有限公司在12月出價(jià)收購矽品精密工業(yè)。臺灣總統(tǒng)選舉中，主要反對黨候選人蔡英文宣稱內(nèi)地企業(yè)對臺灣芯片公司的投資是“巨大的威脅”。她在投票日1月16日勝出當(dāng)選。

As to whether China will realise its ambitions, or whether it will continue to be dependent on foreign chip technology, Taiwan’s own experience is instructive. From the 1980s, it was highly successful in developing world-class chip foundries, such as TSMC, and in cultivating sparky designers of processor chips such as MediaTek. But in part that was because of good timing: the chip industry was moving towards a model of separating the design and the fabrication of chips, and Taiwan successfully rode that trend. But its more recent attempt to be big in memory chips was a disaster. Mark Li of Sanford C. Bernstein, a research firm, reckons that despite $50 billion in capital expenditure during the late 1990s and 2000s, mostly financed by the government, Taiwanese firms met with “en masse failure in memory.”

中國會(huì)實(shí)現(xiàn)其野心還是會(huì)繼續(xù)依賴國外的芯片技術(shù)，臺灣的經(jīng)驗(yàn)值得借鑒。從上世紀(jì)80年代開始，臺灣非常成功地打造了臺積電這樣世界級的芯片代工廠，也培育出了聯(lián)發(fā)科技這樣朝氣蓬勃的處理器芯片設(shè)計(jì)公司。但某種程度上，那是時(shí)勢造英雄：當(dāng)時(shí)，芯片產(chǎn)業(yè)正轉(zhuǎn)向設(shè)計(jì)與制造分離的模式，臺灣恰逢其時(shí)。但其最近意欲在內(nèi)存芯片業(yè)務(wù)上做大的嘗試卻一敗涂地。研究公司盛博的馬克·李認(rèn)為，盡管在上世紀(jì)90年代末到本世紀(jì)初，臺灣芯片企業(yè)投入500億美元的資本支出(主要來自政府資助)，但“在內(nèi)存芯片領(lǐng)域遭遇集體失敗”。

These firms lost further fortunes chasing market share. From 2001 to 2010, the global memory-chip business made $8 billion in aggregate profits – but subtract the two successful South Korean makers, Samsung and SK Hynix, and everyone else lost nearly $13 billion. Despite their vast outlays, reckons Mr. Li, Taiwanese firms spent too little to reach the technology frontier and were expecting profits too early.

這些公司在追逐市場份額的過程中進(jìn)一步流失財(cái)富。從2001年至2010年，全球內(nèi)存芯片業(yè)總利潤為80億美元，但除去韓國兩大成功廠商三星和SK海力士的利潤后，其他公司損失近130億美元。馬克·李認(rèn)為，盡管這些臺灣企業(yè)支出龐大，但在前沿技術(shù)研究上的投資太少，而且過早期望獲利。

Douglas Fuller of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou argues that the maturing of the global semiconductor industry in recent years will make it harder still for China to crack. The incumbents in memory chips have become entrenched, especially after recent consolidation; and the chips themselves, with their associated software, are becoming much more complex, making it harder for Chinese firms to master them. ASE’s chief operating officer, Tien Wu, adds that Taiwanese firms were entering the chip market at a time when it was enjoying heady expansion; it will be more difficult for Chinese firms to succeed at a time of slow growth.

杭州浙江大學(xué)教授道格拉斯·富勒認(rèn)為，近年來全球半導(dǎo)體產(chǎn)業(yè)日漸成熟，將令中國更難躋身其中?，F(xiàn)有內(nèi)存芯片企業(yè)已經(jīng)穩(wěn)扎市場，尤其是在近期的一輪整合后。而芯片本身及相關(guān)軟件變得愈加復(fù)雜，令中國公司更難以掌握。日月光集團(tuán)的首席營運(yùn)官吳田玉補(bǔ)充道，臺灣公司是在芯片產(chǎn)業(yè)迅猛擴(kuò)展的年代進(jìn)入芯片市場，中國內(nèi)地企業(yè)要在如今增長緩慢之時(shí)成功打入會(huì)更難。