Li Yifan: Saving the Air with Technology

Shanghai Hesai Technology Co., Ltd. was founded by three top students from Tsinghua University. It is committed to building the world's leading gas analysis and environmental protection instruments. Precise gas analysis instruments, allowing the public to see real-time air quality reports in their area just like Google Maps.

Hesai Technology CEO Li Yifan is very confident in the company's future, because they have the world's leading technology in this field, which is the core competitiveness that others cannot replicate.

Scholar-Net Red-Maker

In the minds of many students, Li Yifan is a scholar. His resume from childhood to adulthood is a model for all parents' expectations: he was recommended to go to Tsinghua University in high school. After graduation, he continued his studies in the United States with the support of a Silicon Valley company. Seven years later, he became a doctor of mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After graduation, it is logical to enter a famous Silicon Valley company to work.

In the eyes of many netizens, he is an out-and-out Internet celebrity, and he will be a little popular every once in a while because of different things. In fact, Li Yifan has been doing things that others would not easily try.

In 2008, Li Yifan met for the first time with Sun Kai (currently the chairman of Hesai Technology) and Xiang Shaoqing (currently the chief technology officer of Hesai Technology) who were studying at Stanford University. , Although the three of them did not mention entrepreneurship in this meeting, they shared the same interests and believed that they would not be Silicon Valley engineers for a lifetime.

At the beginning of 2013, Sun Kai did research on the laser absorption spectroscopy gas sensor direction in the Stanford University laboratory, improving the gas detection accuracy by 1000 times. The astonishing discovery of this lab has inspired the entrepreneurial dreams of three young people. Coupled with the increasingly prominent air pollution problem in China, they are determined to make this technology into products together, hoping to one day make the most advanced hardware in Silicon Valley. Technology is introduced into China and industrialized to give more help to Chinese people.

Three international students, with the same sense of mission, embarked on a challenging entrepreneurial journey in Silicon Valley. The three raised their own funds, stayed up all night to overcome technical difficulties, and tried their lives to meet investors. After more than a year of hard work, they have developed three generations of portable gas composition testing instruments, completed two financings, and received millions of dollars in investment.

At the end of 2014, Li Yifan and his two partners returned from Silicon Valley to Shanghai to register a company and started recruiting and bringing products to the market. "We started from Shenghesai, the largest city in Silicon Valley, so the company is called Hesai Technology." Li Yifan said.

The confidence behind the technology

Seven years have passed, Li Yifan has faded away from the green and shy, exuding a mature and stable temperament from the inside to the outside. As the founder and chief operating officer, he is still full of passion and firm dreams.

Li Yifan's Hesai Technology is just like his dream, hoping to provide an effective "air monitoring" solution for the country in the present time when the smog is plagued and the environment is seriously polluted, so as to be a "China". A real-time map of hazardous gases".

Different from many post-90s entrepreneurs, who use various public relations means to stir up a concept, after a short-lived social media, it will disappear, and it is difficult to have long-term development. Li Yifan is very confident in the future of Hesai Technology. He said that the reason why he thinks Hesai Technology will become a big company is because they have the best technology in the world in this field, which is the core that cannot be copied by others. Competitiveness.

The product developed by Hesai Technology is a cutting-edge high-precision gas analyzer, which is in an international leading position in the field of air detection. This optical instrument weighing about 3kg can accurately measure various components in the air, including sulfides, nitrides and other harmful gases that cannot usually be measured, and through this instrument, form a real-time updated air quality map.

"We're playing a big game." Li Yifan said with a smile. Behind these words is the confidence of technology. He said that Moji Weather is only a data platform, while Hesai is a data platform for the entire industry chain - from the instruments and sensors at the source to the final data platform. From a technical point of view, through the gas sensor mounted on the mobile terminal and the cloud-based IoT platform system, the real-time data of harmful gases can be quickly and accurately detected.

"The business model of Hesai Technology is to build the Internet of Things with its own funds." He explained that Hesai products face three types of people: consumers, institutions, and governments. "So our future direction is 'To C, To B and To G'." When it comes to the field he is familiar with, Li Yifan is very excited. He is a technical geek full of energy and unusual.

Turn the earth into paradise

Although it took a few years, Li Yifan quickly switched back to the domestic work rhythm and way of life. "My character is to completely abandon the old things when I get to a new place." This character allowed him to get rid of the American thinking environment and quickly adapt to the national conditions. "Do things according to the domestic rules of the game, so that it is possible to become a large and down-to-earth company. If we insist on using the American thinking to build a company in China, it is unreasonable." In terms of company management, Li Yifan has formed his own philosophy of logic.

This year is the first year that Hesai's air monitors are officially launched into the market. Although it is a novice, it is ready to go and has been tested by the market. Li Yifan said that he hoped that in the next three years, Hesai would become the most influential company in environmental monitoring in China, and an influential intelligent hardware company in about five years, making hardware that can truly change people's lives.

Li Yifan hopes that in the future, people can be liberated and replaced by machines. "It is not accidental that we chose air detection as an entry point. Instruments are a very important part of the industrialization process. Only by doing well the instruments can we do well in larger machines and more complex manufacturing. Only when the manufacturing industry is done well can the overall technical level of the country rise, and under this premise, there will be more opportunities to replace people with machines."

"In short, as a scientist, as an enterprise Whether it is a home or an engineer, our biggest wish is to turn the earth into a paradise." Li Yifan's dream carries the impulse and beauty of young people.

He firmly believes that this dream will come true. When a large number of robots replace human beings, most diseases can be cured, and energy resources can be replaced by new methods, and human beings will no longer need to work hard to get to the West. Elysium, because here is heaven.

Maker Talk

Q: It's good in the United States, why do you want to "roll" back to China?

Sun Kai: All three of us realized that we would not be Silicon Valley engineers for the rest of our lives. China has a bigger market and better development opportunities. In addition, China's air pollution problem is becoming more and more serious. We are determined to make technology into products, introduce and industrialize it in China, and give more help to the Chinese people. But what is more in my heart is that we hope to be on the front line of this "Made in China 2025 VS German Industrialization 4.0" PK.

Q: Are you sure you can win?

Li Yifan: Very sure. And Hesai Technology will definitely become a great company, because we have the world's leading technology in the field of air detection, and our unique Internet of Things model. This is the core competitiveness that others cannot replicate. In China, where there are many scientific and engineering practitioners, as long as there is a reasonable platform and development model, the spring of China's high-end manufacturing industry will not be far away.