"Today we stand here together to experience this glorious moment, but listing is not the ultimate goal, but our new beginning. In the next second, we will continue to devote ourselves to new battlefields and continue to develop our business." Zhang Nangeng said in his listing speech Speaking of.

Like the anime he likes to watch on station B for many years, the protagonist who has gone through untold hardships finally overcomes all difficulties and dangers and wins. Coincidentally, more than a year ago, station B also landed in the capital market here, becoming the first stock of the "two-dimensional".

Now, as the bell is ringing, Zhang Nangeng has made his Canaan the “No. 1 blockchain stock in the world” after three previous unsuccessful attempts to land in the capital market—ahead of rival Bitmain, which is fighting among itself.

For Zhang Nangeng, Nasdaq must be a place worth remembering. After all, it has sublimated his career and hobbies and gained more recognition.

Zhang Nangeng’s Canaan’s journey from its establishment to its listing is also a history of the development of cryptocurrency. It is precisely with the idealism of changing the world that it prompts a group of young people to explore on the long road.

On the occasion of the successful IPO, "Everyday Chain News" exclusively interviewed Zhang Nangeng. He defines himself as "a person who prefers to toss new things".

During the conversation, he not only talked about the original intention of starting a business, but also talked about how to overcome the most difficult stage in the past; at the same time, he revealed his observation of the industry and his understanding of the mission of the younger generation of entrepreneurs.

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The "two-dimensional" boy who dropped out of school and his mining machine

Zhang Nangeng likes to watch anime. It is said that he once watched nearly 500 anime a year. He is a standard two-dimensional "otaku".

However, in 2010, Bitcoin broke into Zhang Nangeng's world, or he broke into the world of Bitcoin. Zhang Nangeng's life trajectory has thus changed.

When he came into contact with Bitcoin for the first time, he did not just "speculate coins" like most people, but set his sights on the "mining machine" for mining coins.

Later facts also proved that Zhang Nangeng did have a talent different from ordinary people in the research and development of mining machines.

In August 2011, Zhang Nangeng appeared on the Bitcoin forum BitcoinForum with the ID "ngzhang". In September, "ngzhang" published a post titled "FPGA development board 'Icarus", and in the following time began to promote the FPGA mining machines he developed - Icarus and Lancelot.

The names of the mining machines, Icarus (Icarus) and Lancelot (Lancelot), both come from the Japanese anime Zhang Nangeng loves.

Zhang Nangeng, who is still a PhD student, became the first person in the world to develop an FPGA mining machine.

Relying on the excellent performance and good sales of Icarus and Lancelot, "ngzhang" became famous in Bitcoin Forum.

In June 2012, "Butterfly Labs", an American organization specializing in the development of bitcoin mining machines, announced that it was preparing to develop a centralized circuit (ASIC) mining machine, and promised to deliver the first batch of ASIC mining machines in October of that year. Butterfly Labs received a million dollars in crowdfunding as a result.

The performance of ASIC mining machines is far superior to the mainstream FPGA mining machines at that time. Once successfully developed, Butterfly Lab will control far more than 51% of the global computing power, then they will be able to carry out 51% attacks on the Bitcoin network. serious threat.

"This kind of thing must not be allowed to happen!" Zhang Nangeng announced on the Bitcoin forum that he will launch an ASIC mining machine called "Avalon" before the opponent.

Not surprisingly, "Avalon" is also a word in the anime. It is a mysterious paradise. The island is guarded by elves and can resist all foreign invasions.

Zhang Nangeng said in a later interview that the research on ASIC mining machines at that time was mainly for "world peace" and to prevent mining machine manufacturers from monopolizing more than 51% of the computing power of the Bitcoin network and causing damage to the network.

In order to be able to concentrate on the development of ASIC mining machines and deliver products ahead of the Butterfly Lab, Zhang Nangeng found a mentor, hoping to take a year off from school, but was rejected by the mentor, and the approval was not obtained after many communications.

After a long period of thinking and entanglement, one day in November 2012, he made a "risky" decision to drop out of school and concentrate on developing ASIC mining machines.

Bill Gates, who founded Microsoft, also dropped out of school to start a business. However, Bill Gates said in an interview that he did not drop out of school completely at that time, but that he could continue to return to Harvard to complete his studies if his business failed.

The difference in the education system between China and the United States puts Zhang Nangeng, who made the decision to drop out of school, under greater pressure. After more than two months, Zhang Nangeng devoted himself to the research and development of ASIC mining machines. In January 2013, the world's first ASIC mining machine was finally successfully developed, and then began to deliver products.

The first generation of Avalon adopts 110 nm technology, and its computing power can dig out 357 bitcoins a day. According to the price of Bitcoin at that time, the daily income of using Avalon mining is close to 200,000 RMB.

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Founded Canaan and the "Wolf Raising Project"

After the successful development of Avalon, Zhang Nangeng, who had dropped out of school, decided to officially start his own business.

In April 2013, Zhang Nangeng registered and established "Beijing Jianan Jiesi Information Technology Co., Ltd." in Beijing. The English name "Canaan" of "Jia Nan" also comes from Zhang Nangeng's favorite animation.

At that time, it coincided with the time when the price of Bitcoin rose sharply after the outbreak of the Cyprus crisis, and the benefits of mining surged. The Avalon mining machine with higher computing power is naturally extremely popular. An Avalon mining machine is in stock and has been fired up to 400,000 yuan. It is hard to find a machine on the market. Even Wu Jihan, who later founded Bitmain, was an agent of Avalon chips at that time.

Just when Jianan was making money with the Avalon mining machine and the business was booming, Zhang Nangeng made a decision that was beyond everyone's expectations. He announced that Canaan will terminate the sales of the overall mining machine, only focus on the R&D and production of chips, and open source all hardware solutions except the chips of the Avalon mining machine on the Internet.

Zhang Nangeng’s decision caused hundreds of mining machine assemblers to pop up in the market, and the market share that originally belonged to Canaan’s family was also divided, turning into a “wolf raising plan” in the mining machine market.

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Crisis, Winter and Transformation 

Not long after Zhang Nangeng announced that he would focus on the chip business, Canaan, which was gaining momentum, encountered its first crisis since its establishment.

Since the third batch of pre-sold mining machines and the fourth batch of pre-sold chips were not delivered as scheduled, and another ASIC mining machine "Roasted Cat Mining Machine" has come out, Canaan has encountered a serious reputation crisis and market crisis.

In the face of the crisis, Canaan promptly launched the second-generation Avalon mining machine with 55 nm technology, and sold it on the official website and e-commerce website at the same time, and survived the crisis without any risk.

However, the "winter" of the general environment has arrived.

At the end of 2013, the central bank and other five ministries and commissions issued the "Notice on Preventing Bitcoin Risks". The notice pointed out that Bitcoin is not issued by monetary authorities, does not have currency attributes such as legal compensation and mandatory, and is not a currency in the true sense.

At the same time, the price of Bitcoin also began to fall sharply at the end of the year, falling by nearly 50% in half a month. Suddenly, the industry was "sorrowful".

Mining machine manufacturers, including Canaan, began to "overwinter".

During this period, Zhang Nangeng led the team to continue the research and development of ASIC chips, while thinking about "what can Canaan do besides mining machines".

In 2016, after AlphaGo defeated Li Shidol, AI became a very popular concept. Zhang Nangeng felt as if he had found the answer. He officially established AI chips as one of the company's strategic development directions, and organized a team to immediately start the research and development of AI chips.

In September 2018, Canaan launched the first-generation AI chip Kanzhi K210, becoming the first company in the industry to provide and mass-produce a commercial edge AI chip based on the RISC-V architecture.

"I have a habit. If there are already good companies or products in an industry, such as CPUs, then I don't want to get them. And AI chips have not developed until now after so many years. It’s especially good, this kind of industry is suitable for entrepreneurs to toss about.” Zhang Nangeng said.

Zhang Nangeng made another decision that he considered to be the most difficult in the entrepreneurial process—abandoning the traditional chip model, building an Internet model, and providing an overall solution.

Zhang Nangeng hopes that Canaan can become a provider of super computing power solutions, not just selling chips.

Zhang Nangeng's "transformation" of Canaan has also transformed this traditional "mining machine company".

According to the prospectus, Canaan has established a high-performance computing department and an artificial intelligence business group, and has formed a two-wheel-driven operation mode of "AI + high-performance computing".

The following is the content of the interview:

1. "Tiantian Lianxun": What is the trigger point and original intention of your entrepreneurial start?

Zhang Nangeng:I am a person who prefers to toss new things. I was in the computer department of Beihang University at the time, majoring in computer architecture, and I actually finished all the courses. I have worked in Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation for several years. Although I have accumulated a lot of experience in technology and quality control, I still feel that I should improve, and then I will continue to test and study for a Ph.D.

I made the first ASIC-based computing device while I was in school, and around 2011, I was exposed to Bitcoin and thought it had a 1% chance of changing the world. By 2012, I think the possibility of this thing changing the world is no longer 1%, about 5%.

I have a point of view that judging whether a technology or business model is successful depends on whether it can really improve the efficiency of social operations.

At the time, I felt that one person rarely had this kind of opportunity to participate in changing the world, so I dropped out of school. Around September 17, 2012, I decided to use the method of making chips to make ASIC computing equipment. At that time, there was no concept of blockchain.

Whether it is ASIC computing or AI chips, from the beginning of our business to the present, we have actually been focusing on doing things related to computing. One improves the efficiency of social operation, and the other changes people's life scenes. The ultimate goal is to improve people's lives through intelligent computing.

2. "Tiantian Lianxun": How did you get through the most difficult stage of starting a business?

Zhang Nangeng:The most difficult choice is to give up the traditional chip model, to do the Internet model, and to provide an overall solution.

We have encountered relatively big challenges in the promotion and implementation of AI chips. AI chips are very different from traditional chips, and the threshold for using AI chips is very high. At the beginning, the positioning was still a relatively traditional way of selling chips, but the effect was not particularly good.

After the Spring Festival, we actually changed the main general direction again, which took a long time to explore. Now we are equivalent to providing overall solutions to customers. We also sell chips, algorithms, and modules. We even set up a product group and made a lot of products, such as smart door lock modules, sensorless access control systems, and smart meters. mods and more.

3. "Everyday Chain News": In the process of starting a business, what opportunities and challenges have been brought about by historical opportunities and industry changes? How can enterprises and individuals resonate with the times?

Zhang Nangeng:For us, 2019 is a pivotal year. The popularization of 5G will directly lead to the explosion of large connection, low latency and low power consumption application scenarios. All end-to-end devices have a new communication foundation, which means that large-scale commercial use of end-to-end intelligence will begin a substantial start.

We chose the R&D of edge-side AI chips mainly because of the following two opportunities:

First, from a technical perspective, AI has had a transformative impact on traditional computing architectures. In fact, the fields dominated by traditional giants are not suitable for start-up companies to enter. At present, the specialization of AI chips has become a trend, and this is our opportunity.

Second, from a market perspective, the development of 5G will promote more application scenarios for device interconnection, and will promote the development of the edge market in the future.

4. "Tiantian Lianxun": In your opinion, what important contributions have you and the company made to commercial civilization and social progress?

Zhang Nangeng:Make the commercialization path of smart chips clear and expand, and improve the efficiency of social operation and human life through computing power services.

Computing power is a new strategic resource. It will bring the way people work and the business model of enterprises to the new platform of artificial intelligence. In terms of services, we are committed to providing super computing power solutions.

The second is the reshaping of the trading model. The ideal trading environment is decentralized. Our continuous breakthroughs in the underlying computing architecture have provided a solid computing power foundation for the decentralized trading network.

5. "Tiantian Lianxun": In the next ten years, what stage do you hope the company will develop to? What are the expectations for the industry and policies?

Zhang Nangeng:We hope that Canaan will develop into a provider of super computing power solutions in the future. We hope to use computing as the core to provide enterprises with intelligent services throughout the life cycle, running through every aspect of the enterprise from obtaining data, connecting data, and driving services based on data.

We believe that with the development of AIoT+5G, the outbreak of the edge market will force a breakthrough in the underlying computing architecture.

I believe that Chinese chips must be number one in the world from design to product application. China has the largest chip market in the world, as well as the most complete supply system and advanced technology in the world. Eventually, the IC design center will also be relocated to China. We hope that the policy can give more support to IC design and accelerate the arrival of this result.

6. "Tiantian Lianxun": How do you define the mission and dream of an entrepreneur?

Zhang Nangeng:From the historical perspective, China's entrepreneurial group is divided into three generations. The first generation started their businesses from within the system, such as Liu Chuanzhi and Ren Zhengfei. They often have a primitive passion for the market and a strong sense of family and country.

Since the market-oriented reform started in 1994, coupled with the wave of informatization, it has given birth to the rise of the second generation of entrepreneurs. For example, entrepreneurs born in the 60s and 70s such as Jack Ma, Ma Huateng, and Robin Li have less patriotism and more advocacy of success, and their choices are more in line with the behavioral framework of the market.

Today, after going through the early reckless era and the era of model innovation, we will usher in a real era of technological innovation and entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs born in the 1980s should have a strong spirit of innovation and craftsmanship, take the realization of technological ideals as the origin of behavior, and export local original value to the outside world.

With the rise of technologies such as AI and the Internet of Things, computing architecture has entered a period of profound change. Computing power has become an important strategic resource for the development of enterprises. Whoever can grasp the computing power well can take the initiative.

No matter what kind of enterprise, its ultimate goal is to create value and provide users with good services. Entrepreneurs' missions and dreams need to be realized and accepted by the market, otherwise they will be castles in the air.

Our positioning is a super computing solution provider. We hope to use the ever-increasing super computing power as enterprise productivity to provide customers with AI competitiveness, help customers realize their self-worth in the intelligent world, and welcome the new era of intelligent economy.