关键核心技术突破与国产替代路径及机制——科大讯飞智能语音技术纵向案例研究

Path and Mechanism of Core Technology Breakthrough and Domestic Substitution:A Longitudinal Case Study of IFLY TEK Intelligent Speech Technology

在数字经济时代,新兴产业往往处于底层架构类基础科学不足和上层技术应用场景狭隘并存的复杂技术情境中,面临着无标杆、无方向、无引领与无主导范式的风险与机遇。通过自主创新、技术领域国产替代等,我国在新兴产业领域涌现出一批拥有自主知识产权、在国际上处于技术前沿的新兴企业。基于传统领先战略的A—U创新模型与我国过去跟随战略的“二次创新”模型都无法解释这类新兴企业如何通过自主创新,在关键核心技术领域实现国产替代;同时现有研究对处于同一起跑线的新兴企业如何实现领先亦缺乏充分的理论解释。本文通过对科大讯飞2000~2021年从跟随到领跑的智能语音技术国产替代过程展开纵向案例研究发现:我国新兴企业实现核心技术国产替代的路径机制中,遵循着一条基于关键核心技术范式预判的“技术链垂直化—产业链平台化—创新链生态化”的创新发展演进过程,其中基础技术科学创新与基础科学知识创新构成两个关键创新要素。关键核心技术突破与国产替代是发展中国家新兴企业实现价值链领先的重要路径。由此提出的“基于科学研究与市场应用纵横交替”的关键核心技术国产替代模型,不仅推进了企业领先战略与技术创新管理两个领域理论的发展,而且对我国人工智能领域企业的创新发展有所启示。

In the era of digital economy, emerging industries are always in a complex technological situation where the basic science of the underlying architecture is insufficient and the application scenarios of the upper-level technology are narrow, and they are facing risks and opportunities with no benchmark, no direction, no leadership, and no dominant paradigm. Through independent innovation, domestic substitution in technical fields, a number of Chinses enterprises with independent intellectual property rights are emerging in some new industries, which are at the same frontier as developed economies. In the field of theoretical research, neither the A-U innovation model based on the traditional leading strategy nor the "secondary innovation" model of the following strategy in the past can explain how such emerging companies can achieve domestic substitution in key core technology fields through independent innovation;at the same time, the existing research also lacks a sufficient theoretical explanation for how emerging companies at the same starting line achieve leadership.Through the longitudinal case study of iFLYTEK’s strategic process of domestic substitution of intelligent speech technology from following to leading since 2000, this research reveals that: in the strategic path of emerging enterprises realizing domestic substitution of core technologies, a paradigm based on key core technologies is followed. The innovation evolution process of the predicted "verticalization of the technology chain-platformization of the industrial chain-ecologicalization of the innovation chain", in which basic technology innovation and basic scientific knowledge innovation constitute two key innovation elements. This paper proposes a domestic substitution of key core technologies model based on scientific research and market application. The model not only promotes the two theories of enterprise leadership strategy and technological innovation management, but also promotes the innovative development of the emerging enterprises in the artificial intelligence fields.