Summary

4Paradigm is a Beijing based AI startup that is pioneering machine learning software in China. It was founded by ex-Baidu R&D engineers, with Dai Wenyuan at the forefront as CEO. The 4Paradigm team were early pioneers of Baidu’s AI driven keyword anticipation feature and soon after joined China’s leading incubator to launch 4Paradigm. It recently announced the introduction of James Pei, the former vice president of SAP, as the new president.

Although 4Paradigm are targeting numerous industries, one of the most promising applications of their software is within finance, internet, medical, government, energy, retail, and media.

4Paradigm founder and CEO Dai Wenyuan has remarked that “4paradigm is at the forefront of the development of deep learning and relational learning theory. It provides industry-specific patented technologies for practical problems of machine learning, including model self-learning, data-free cleaning, complex model interpretation and man-machine coordination.”

Ultimately, 4Paradigm is helping to turn the tide against fraudulent claims in China, and having just

History

The company was first established in September 2014. In August 2015, it signed the China Merchants Bank, taking the lead in applying AI in the financial field and generating great value.

4Paradigm founder and CEO Dai Wenyuan

In January 2016, it closed a B round led by Sequoia China, making it well positioned to expand its offerings into AI driven underwriting and even customer service.

Later that year, in November, the company established a joint laboratory with China Everbright, the first AI+ financial laboratory in China while in December 2016 it won the “Wu Wenjun Award” Innovation First Prize, the first company to receive the national AI highest award.

Along 2017, the company saw its efforts in innovation being recognised as it signed a CITIC Construction Investment in March. In May it was selected selected as “Gartner’s five most representative AI companies in East Asia”, the only AI platform company in China to make it to that list while it won the first migration learning algorithm contest champion. Later that year, in December, it won the BNP Paribas “International Financial Hacking Competition”, the first world champion from Asia in the history of the event.

In March 2018, the company signed a PICC and made a breakthrough in AI+ insurance while it established itself as a global “financial + AI” benchmark

By the end of the year, 4Paradigm’s solutions were already applied and tested into a myriad of different areas. For example, in August 2018, it signed a strategic cooperation with Ruijin Hospital to release AI chronic disease prediction and management products.

It was also a time of scaling, with new funding coming in as in November 2018 it attracted a C round Financing of over 1 billion yuan, becoming the only venture for the investment of the five major banks. That pushed the company to being listed on the CB Insights Unicorn list, becoming one of the nine AI unicorns in the world in February 2019.

Solutions

4Paradigm is working in multiple sectors applying their AI and machine learning technology, which includes the following solutions:

• Sage (Prophet) AI platform. A development kit tailored for AI applications designed to provide enterprises with low-threshold, comprehensive, end-to-end, scalable, and enterprise-class AI application development tools.
• Decision-making AI application development tools. Standardized, full-process AI application building tools, based on the “learning circle” theory to build a “behavior-feedback-training-application” machine learning closed loop, to help enterprises scale and efficiency to create their own AI capabilities.
• Visual AI application development tools. Standardized, full-process, versatile computer vision application engine, capable of covering the entire process of visual application, can provide enterprises with independent and controllable one-stop visual application construction capabilities.
• AI application system. An intelligent decision-making platform and risk management platform that solves all kinds of fraud and credit risk problems end-to-end.

References

• https://www.4paradigm.com/article-content//143-2019-02-12-08-10-10/568-sap
• https://www.the-digital-insurer.com/dia/4paradigm/
• https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/4paradigm#section-overview
• https://www.cbinsights.com/company/4paradigm
• https://craft.co/4paradigm