Being Online: On Computing, Data, the Internet, and the Cloud
A pioneer of cloud computing and big data offers his vision of the future world taking shape around us. 
 
Jian Wang was the founder and architect of Alibaba's cloud and has been the driving force behind its technology innovations. He was also the founder of the City Brain initiative to develop a new digital infrastructure for sustainable cities. Being Online is his meditation on the moment we are in, as the digital era shifts to the internet era, spawning new innovations at a seemingly dizzying pace: cloud computing, 5G, artificial intelligence, big data, wearables, robots, virtual reality, the internet of things, blockchain, and more. For Wang, the invisible hand that connects them is being online. The conjunction of computing, data, and the internet has erased the difference between being online and off. When computing can be done in the cloud, it is on the road to becoming a utility. When data is connected, making it big, its usefulness multiplies exponentially in unforeseeable ways, as does its value.
 
This moment will be as transformative for humanity as Henry Ford's production line. Data is changing the nature of business. Computing is reshaping the economy. The cloud will help us do things we could never do before, at scales that were previously impossible. It will reshape our vision of the world, as electrification once did and, more recently, the transition from analog to digital. While telling the story of Alibaba’s breakthroughs and the development of his own understanding of the internet, Jian Wang's visionary book lays out the implications of this shift and how to think about being online.
1138004584
Being Online: On Computing, Data, the Internet, and the Cloud
A pioneer of cloud computing and big data offers his vision of the future world taking shape around us. 
 
Jian Wang was the founder and architect of Alibaba's cloud and has been the driving force behind its technology innovations. He was also the founder of the City Brain initiative to develop a new digital infrastructure for sustainable cities. Being Online is his meditation on the moment we are in, as the digital era shifts to the internet era, spawning new innovations at a seemingly dizzying pace: cloud computing, 5G, artificial intelligence, big data, wearables, robots, virtual reality, the internet of things, blockchain, and more. For Wang, the invisible hand that connects them is being online. The conjunction of computing, data, and the internet has erased the difference between being online and off. When computing can be done in the cloud, it is on the road to becoming a utility. When data is connected, making it big, its usefulness multiplies exponentially in unforeseeable ways, as does its value.
 
This moment will be as transformative for humanity as Henry Ford's production line. Data is changing the nature of business. Computing is reshaping the economy. The cloud will help us do things we could never do before, at scales that were previously impossible. It will reshape our vision of the world, as electrification once did and, more recently, the transition from analog to digital. While telling the story of Alibaba’s breakthroughs and the development of his own understanding of the internet, Jian Wang's visionary book lays out the implications of this shift and how to think about being online.
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Being Online: On Computing, Data, the Internet, and the Cloud

Being Online: On Computing, Data, the Internet, and the Cloud

Being Online: On Computing, Data, the Internet, and the Cloud

Being Online: On Computing, Data, the Internet, and the Cloud

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Overview

A pioneer of cloud computing and big data offers his vision of the future world taking shape around us. 
 
Jian Wang was the founder and architect of Alibaba's cloud and has been the driving force behind its technology innovations. He was also the founder of the City Brain initiative to develop a new digital infrastructure for sustainable cities. Being Online is his meditation on the moment we are in, as the digital era shifts to the internet era, spawning new innovations at a seemingly dizzying pace: cloud computing, 5G, artificial intelligence, big data, wearables, robots, virtual reality, the internet of things, blockchain, and more. For Wang, the invisible hand that connects them is being online. The conjunction of computing, data, and the internet has erased the difference between being online and off. When computing can be done in the cloud, it is on the road to becoming a utility. When data is connected, making it big, its usefulness multiplies exponentially in unforeseeable ways, as does its value.
 
This moment will be as transformative for humanity as Henry Ford's production line. Data is changing the nature of business. Computing is reshaping the economy. The cloud will help us do things we could never do before, at scales that were previously impossible. It will reshape our vision of the world, as electrification once did and, more recently, the transition from analog to digital. While telling the story of Alibaba’s breakthroughs and the development of his own understanding of the internet, Jian Wang's visionary book lays out the implications of this shift and how to think about being online.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781951627799
Publisher: Arcade
Publication date: 10/05/2021
Pages: 336
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Dr. Jian Wang was the chief technology officer at Alibaba and founded its cloud, which ranks third as a public cloud provider globally and first in Asia. He was also the chief architect of Apsara, its computing foundation, and took the lead in proposing the industrial model of using computing as a public service. In 2016, Dr. Wang pioneered and led the nonprofit City Brain initiative to develop a new digital infrastructure for sustainable “smart” cities as his personal effort and was the architect of Hangzhou City Brain. He founded the Yunqi Academy of Engineering, a private nonprofit research institute with a focus on scientific research for City Brain, and the Yunqi Science and Technology Innovation Foundation, a philanthropic private foundation that operates the free 2050 museum, which envisions the future through technology innovation and organizes the 2050 event every year in April, promoting the vision of science and technology bringing people together. He is a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and lives in Hangzhou, China.

Table of Contents

Foreword Jack Ma xi

1 Confusion, Dislocation, and Entanglements in the Digital Era 1

Confusion between Data and the Internet 1

Dislocation of the Cloud and Computing 11

Entanglement of Being Offline and Being Online 19

2 The Evolution from Being Digital to Being Online 25

Being Online Is the True Nature of the Internet 28

Atoms Become Bits, Bits Go Online 34

The Map: An Evolution from Analog to Digital to Online 45

Being Online Is a Brand-New Continent 53

3 The Evolution from Information to Data 61

Data Is More Valuable than Information 61

Data Is a Strategic Resource 65

The Telescope, the Microscope, and Radar 68

Believing in Data Is a Kind of Self-Confidence 73

4 The Evolution from Computers to Computing 81

Computing Is a New Public Utility 81

There Is No Public or Private Cloud, Only the Utility Cloud 96

Apsara: Driving Computing to Be a Public Service 104

De-IOF: Computing Is Replacing Computers 114

5 The Mobile Internet Is the Internet of Being Online 127

The Clamor of Mobile and the Silence of Being Online 127

Apps Are Good, but the Web Is Great 138

YunOS: An Operating System Created for Being Online 141

It's Not the Internet of Things, It's the Internet of All Things Under the Sun 149

6 Pursuing the Dream of the Online Cloud 155

Making Computing Online 155

Breaking through the Fog Surrounding Cloud Computing 158

Tradition and Innovation Hand in Hand; Large and Small on the Same Stage 166

Computing Becomes a New Capability of Human Beings 173

Data Is a New Natural Resource, a New Source of Wealth in the World 178

7 From Menlo Park to Yunqi Town 189

A Park Lights Up the World 192

Yunqi, Built for Developers and Start-ups 194

The Apsara Conference: A Computing Conference 204

Yunqi's Journey with Computing 213

8 The Fusion of the Internet, Data, and Computing 227

The Internet Becomes Infrastructure and a Platform for Innovation 227

Data Becomes a Means of Production and a Type of Natural Resource 232

Computing Becomes a Public Utility 237

The Coming of the Computing Economy 241

9 From Moore's Law to the Laws of Being Online 249

Fire and Electricity 249

The Laws of Being Online 253

Shadows in the Sunshine 261

10 Humanity's Self-Confidence 269

Showing Respect for Others, Being Confident in Oneself 269

City Brain: Moonshot Initiative for the Next Decade 280

Epilogue 291

Acknowledgments 295

Permissions Acknowledgments 297

Index 299

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