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Mobile Telecoms: Wireless: The Next Generation
A new wave of mobile technology is on its way, and will bring drastic change
The future is already arriving, it is just a question of knowing where to look. On Changshou Road in Shanghai, eagle eyes may spot an odd rectangular object on top of an office block: it is a collection of 128 miniature antennae. Pedestrians in Manhattan can catch a glimpse of apparatus that looks like a video camera on a stand, but jerks around and has a strange, hornlike protrusion where the lens should be. It blasts a narrow beam of radio waves at buildings so they can bounce their way to the receiver. The campus of the University of Surrey in Guildford, England, is dotted with 44 antennae, which form virtual wireless cells that follow a device around.
未来已然在目，只在于我们放眼何方。上海的长寿路上，目光敏锐的人会发现一座办公楼的楼顶架着奇怪的矩形物体：由128条微型天线组成的设备。在曼哈顿，行人会瞥见摄像头般的装置立在支架上，不但会猛然转动，而且在本应是镜头的位置有奇怪的角状突出。该装置向建筑物发射窄束无线电波，经过反射的电波可以传给接收器。萨里大学(University of Surrey)在英格兰吉尔福德(Guildford)的校园内分布着44台天线，形成一套虚拟的无线基站，供手机使用。
These antennae are vanguards of a new generation of wireless technologies. Although the previous batch, collectively called “fourth generation”, or 4G, is still being rolled out in many countries, the telecoms industry has already started working on the next, 5G. On February 12th AT&T, America’s second-largest mobile operator, said it would begin testing whether prototype 5G circuitry works indoors, following similar news in September from Verizon, the number one. South Korea wants to have a 5G network up and running when it hosts the Winter Olympics in 2018; Japan wants the same for the summer games in 2020. When the industry held its annual jamboree, Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona in February, 5G topped the agenda.
这些天线是新一代无线技术的前沿成果。虽然许多国家仍在推广被统称为“第四代”(即4G)的前一代无线技术，但电信业已经迈向下一代技术即5G的研发。2月12日，美国第二大移动运营商AT&T表示将试验5G原型电路能否在室内接通。而早在去年9月，美国第一大移动运营商Verizon也做过类似的实验。韩国希望在2018年主办冬季奥运会时能建成并启用5G网络;日本希望在2020年主办夏季奥运会时实现同样的愿景。2月在无线业界于巴塞罗那召开的年度峰会世界移动通信大会(Mobile World Congress)上，5G技术成为首要议题。
Mobile telecoms have come a long way since Martin Cooper of Motorola, inventor of the DynaTAC, the first commercially available handset, demonstrated it in 1973. In the early 2000s, when 3G technology made web-browsing feasible on mobiles, operators splashed out more than $100 billion on radio-spectrum licences, only to find that the technology most had agreed to use was harder to implement than expected.
自摩托罗拉的马丁·库帕(Martin Cooper)在1973年展示其发明的首款商用手机DynaTAC以来，移动通讯已有长足的发展。21世纪初，3G技术使手机上网成为可能，运营商于是砸出超过千亿美元购入无线电频谱牌照，却发现这项大多数人已同意使用的技术推广起来难于预期。 The advent of 5G is likely to bring another splurge of investment, just as orders for 4G equipment are peaking. The goal is to be able to offer users no less than the “perception of infinite capacity”, says Rahim Tafazolli, director of the 5G Innovation Centre at the University of Surrey. Rare will be the device that is not wirelessly connected, from self-driving cars and drones to the sensors, industrial machines and household appliances that together constitute the “internet of things” (IoT).
正当4G设备迎来订单高峰之际，5G的出现很可能激发另一轮投资热潮。目标是至少给用户以 “功能无限的印象”，萨里大学5G创新中心主任拉希姆·塔法佐利(Rahim Tafazolli)说。将来，从无人驾驶汽车、无人机到构成“物联网”的一切传感器、工业机械及家用电器，几乎所有设备都能无线联网。
It is easy to dismiss all this as “a lot of hype”, in the words of Kester Mann of CCS Insight, a research firm. When it comes to 5G, much is still up in the air: not only which band of radio spectrum and which wireless technologies will be used, but what standards makers of network gear and handsets will have to comply with. Telecoms firms have reached consensus only on a set of rough “requirements”. The most important are connection speeds of up to 10 gigabits per second and response times (“latency”) of below 1 millisecond.
视这一切为“炒作”并嗤之以鼻很容易，研究公司CCS Insight的凯斯特·曼(Kester Mann)说道。提到5G，大都未有定论：不只是利用哪一频段的无线电频谱及哪些无线技术未定，还有网络设备及手机制造商须遵照哪些标准也未确定。电信公司已就一套宽泛的“要求”达成共识。最重要的是连接速度最高要达到10Gbps，而且响应时间(“网络延迟”)须低于一毫秒。
Yet the momentum is real. South Korea and Japan are front-runners in wired broadband, and Olympic games are an opportunity to show the world that they intend also to stay ahead in wireless, even if that may mean having to upgrade their 5G networks to comply with a global standard once it is agreed. AT&T and Verizon both invested early in 4G, and would like to lead again with 5G. The market for network equipment has peaked, as recent results from Ericsson and Nokia show, so the makers also need a new generation of products and new groups of customers.
然而，势头已然成真。韩国和日本是有线宽带建设的领跑国家，举办奥运会是一个机会，向世界展现它们也想要领跑无线领域，即便这意味着在全球标准议定出台后它们可能必须升级其5G网络以符合标准要求。AT&T及Verizon均在早期率先投资4G，如今同样希望在5G上再度领先。正如爱立信和诺基亚最近业绩所显示的那样，网络设备市场已经饱和，因此制造商也需要新一代产品及新的客户群。
On the demand side, too, pressure is mounting for better wireless infrastructure. The rapid growth in data traffic will continue for the foreseeable future, says Sundeep Rangan of NYU Wireless, a department of New York University. According to one estimate, networks need to be ready for a 1,000-fold increase in data volumes in the first half of the 2020s. And the radio spectrum used by 4G, which mostly sits below 3 gigahertz, is running out, and thus getting more expensive. An auction in America last year raked in $45 billion.
需求方面也一样，改善无线基础设施的呼声日益迫切。纽约大学无线研究中心(NYU Wireless)的森迪普·兰根(Sundeep Rangan)表示，在可预见的未来，数据流量将继续快速增长。据估计，在本世纪20年代的前五年，网络需要准备好迎接上千倍的数据量增长。而4G所用的无线电频段(大多低于3GHz)已逐渐稀缺，且愈加昂贵，去年美国一次竞拍便卖得450亿美元。
But the path to a 5G wireless paradise will not be smooth. It is not only the usual telecoms suspects who will want a say in this mother of all networks. Media companies will want priority to be given to generous bandwidth, so they can stream films with ever higher resolution. Most IoT firms will not need much bandwidth, but will want their sensors to run on one set of batteries for years – so they will want the 5G standard to put a premium on low power consumption. Online-gaming firms will worry about latency: players will complain if it is too high.
但通往5G无线天堂的道路不会一帆风顺。对这一“万网之源”，争取话事权的不单是惯常那些电信企业。媒体公司希望优先获得更高的带宽，以便其以更高分辨率在线播放影片。大部分物联网企业不需要太大的带宽，而是想自己的传感器能靠一组电池续航数年，所以它们会希望5G标准重视低功耗。网游公司会担心网络延迟的问题：假如延迟过久，玩家会抱怨。
The most important set of new actors, however, are information-technology firms. The likes of Apple, IBM and Samsung have a big interest not only in selling more smartphones and other mobile devices, but also in IoT, which is tipped to generate the next big wave of revenues for them and other companies. Google, which already operates high-speed fibre-optic networks in several American cities and may be tempted to build a wireless one, has shown an interest in 5G. In 2014 it bought Alpental Technologies, a startup which was developing a cheap, high-speed communications service using extremely high radio frequencies, known as “millimetre wave” (mmWave), the spectrum bands above 3 gigahertz where most of 5G is expected to live.
然而，最重要的新登场者是信息技术公司。苹果、IBM、三星这类企业不但关心卖出更多的智能手机及其他移动设备，对于物联网这据称将为其带来下一波收入巨浪的领域，他们也饶有兴致。谷歌已在美国多个城市运营高速光纤网络业务，而且可能有意打造无线网络，目前该公司已对5G表示兴趣。2014年，谷歌收购了创业公司Alpental Technologies，该公司当时正在研发通过极高频无线电提供廉价而高速的通讯服务，即所谓的“毫米波”(mmWave，频段高于3GHz，也是5G预期主要使用的频段)。
To satisfy all these actors will not be easy, predicts Ulf Ewaldsson, Ericsson’s chief technology officer. Questions over spectrum may be the easiest to solve, in part because the World Radiocommunication Conference, established by international treaty, will settle them. Its last gathering, in November, failed to agree on the frequencies for 5G, but it is expected to do so when it next meets in 2019. It is likely to carve out space in the mmWave bands. Tests such as the one in Manhattan mentioned above, which are conducted by researchers from NYU Wireless, have shown that such bands can be used for 5G: although they are blocked even by thin obstacles, they can be made to bounce around them.
要满足所有各方所求并非易事，爱立信首席技术官乌尔夫·艾华信(Ulf Ewaldsson)预言道。频段问题也许是最容易解决的，一方面是因为按国际条约成立的世界无线电通信大会将解决这些问题。大会上一次召开是在去年11月，虽然当时无法就5G所用频率达成一致，但预计大会下一次在2019年召开时便可达成共识，并很可能会在毫米波频段中开辟空间。诸如上文提及由NYU无线研究中心研究人员在曼哈顿所做的测试已显示，这些频段可以用于5G：虽然薄障碍物也会造成阻隔，但可以让它们通过反射绕过障碍物。
For the first time there will not be competing sets of technical rules, as was the case with 4G, when LTE, now the standard, was initially threatened by WiMax, which was bankrolled by Intel, a chipmaker. Nobody seems willing to play Intel’s role this time around. That said, 5G will be facing a strong competitor, especially indoors: smartphone users are increasingly using Wi-Fi connections for calls and texts as well as data. That means they have ever less need for a mobile connection, no matter how blazingly fast it may be.
没有多套技术准则相互竞争，这实属首次，不像4G推出时的情形，如今普遍采用的LTE标准最初还受到芯片制造商英特尔投资开发的WiMax标准威胁。这次，似乎没有谁愿意扮演英特尔的角色。尽管如此，5G将面对一个强大对手，尤其是在室内：智能手机用户除了用Wi-Fi传输数据之外，也越来越多地用其打电话及发短信。那意味着他们对接入移动网络的需求越来越少，不管数据的传输有多么极速。
Facebook: Imperial Ambitions
Facebook：帝国野心
Mark Zuckerberg prepares to fight for dominance of the next era of computing
Not since the era of imperial Rome has the “thumbs-up” sign been such a potent and public symbol of power. A mere 12 years after it was founded, Facebook is a great empire with a vast population, immense wealth, a charismatic leader, and mind-boggling reach and influence. The world’s largest social network has 1.6 billion users, a billion of whom use it every day for an average of over 20 minutes each. In the Western world, Facebook accounts for the largest share of the most popular activity (social networking) on the most widely used computing devices (smartphones); its various apps account for 30% of mobile internet use by Americans. And it is the sixth-most-valuable public company on Earth, worth some $325 billion.
自罗马帝国时代以来，“竖起大拇指”这一手势就成为了公开且有力的权力象征。成立仅十二年之后，Facebook已成为一个伟大的帝国，人口众多、财富无数、领袖魅力非凡，且影响力和影响范围令人难以想象。这一全球最大的社交网络拥有16亿用户，其中十亿每天平均使用时间超过20分钟。在西方世界，Facebook在最广泛使用的计算设备(智能手机)上的最受欢迎的活动(社交网络)中所占份额最大;它各种各样的应用占美国人移动互联网使用的30%。它是全球市值第六大的上市公司，价值3250亿美元。
Even so, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s 31-year-old founder and chief executive, has even greater ambitions. He has plans to connect the digitally unconnected in poor countries by beaming internet signals from solar-powered drones, and is making big bets on artificial intelligence (AI), “chatbots” and virtual reality (VR). This bid for dominance will bring him into increasing conflict with the other great empires of the technology world, and Google in particular. The ensuing battle will shape the digital future for everyone.
即便如此，31岁的Facebook创始人及首席执行官马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)仍有更宏伟的志向。他计划用太阳能供电的无人机发送互联网信号，以连接贫困国家尚未连入数字世界的人，他在人工智能(AI)、聊天机器人和虚拟现实(VR)上押下重注。对统治地位的竞逐会令他和科技世界其他伟大帝国之间的冲突不断增加，尤其是同谷歌之间。今后的战斗将为每个人塑造数字化的未来。
Empires built on data
Facebook has prospered by building compelling services that attract large audiences, whose attention can then be sold to advertisers. The same is true of Google. The two play different roles in their users’ lives: Google has masses of data about the world, whereas Facebook knows about you and your friends; you go to Google to get things done, but turn to Facebook when you have time to kill. Yet their positions of dominance and their strategies are becoming remarkably similar. Unparalleled troves of data make both firms difficult to challenge and immensely profitable, giving them the wealth to make bold bets and to deal with potential competitors by buying them. And both firms crave more users and more data – which, for all the do-gooding rhetoric, explains why they are both so interested in extending internet access in the developing world, using drones or, in Google’s case, giant balloons.
Facebook打造多个引人瞩目的服务吸引大量用户，继而将用户的关注卖给广告商，以此取得成功。谷歌也是如此。这两大公司在其用户的生活中扮演着不同的角色：谷歌拥有关于这个世界的大量数据，而Facebook了解你和你的朋友;你用谷歌是为了完成任务，但要打发时间时你会找Facebook。然而它们的统治地位和战略正变得越来越相似。无与伦比的数据宝藏让两家公司都难有敌手，且获利颇丰，它们的财富足以掷下豪注并且通过收购解决潜在竞争者。这两家公司渴求更多用户、更多数据，用冠冕堂皇的说法，这解释了为何它们都对在发展中国家扩展互联网连接兴趣浓厚，Facebook使用无人机，谷歌则使用巨型气球。
The task is to harness data to offer new services and make money in new ways. Facebook’s bet on AI is a recognition that “machine learning” – in which software learns by crunching data, rather than having to be explicitly programmed – is a big part of the answer. It already uses AI techniques to identify people in photos, for example, and to decide which status updates and ads to show to each user. Facebook is also pushing into AI-powered digital assistants and chatbot programs which interact with users via short messages. Next week it is expected to open up its Messenger service (which can already be used to do things like order an Uber car), to broaden the range of chatbots. And Facebook’s investment in VR – it bought Oculus, the cheerleader of this emerging field, for $2 billion in 2014 – is a bold guess about where computing and communication will go after the smartphone.
现在的任务是利用数据提供新的服务，以新的方式赚钱。Facebook在人工智能方面的赌注是对“机器学习”的认可，即软件通过分析数据学习，而不需要精确编写程序。例如，它已经利用人工智能技术来辨识照片中的人像，也用这一技术确定向每个用户展示什么样的状态更新和广告。Facebook还在推动由人工智能支持的数字助手和聊天机器人程序，它们通过简短的信息与用户互动。下周它计划开放Messenger服务(它已经可以用来做一些事情，例如从优步叫车)，并且拓宽聊天机器人的适用范围。Facebook在虚拟现实上的投资是对计算和通信在智能手机之后将何去何从的大胆预测，它于2014年以20亿美元收购了这一新兴领域的领头羊Oculus。
But Facebook faces rivals in all these areas. Google is using AI techniques to improve its internet services and guide self-driving cars, and other industry giants are also investing heavily in AI – though with the deepest pockets and the most data to crunch, Facebook and Google can attract the best researchers and most promising startups. Facebook lags behind Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft when it comes to voice-driven personal assistants; when it comes to chatbots, it faces competition from Microsoft and a host of startups eager to prove that bots are the new apps. And its push into VR – which Mr Zuckerberg sees as a stepping stone to “augmented reality” (AR), where information is superimposed on the real world – pits it against formidable rivals, too. Microsoft has jumped straight to AR with its HoloLens headset, its most impressive product in years, and Google, already active in VR, has invested in Magic Leap, a little-known AR startup.
但是在所有这些领域Facebook都有对手。谷歌正利用人工智能技术提升其互联网服务、指引无人驾驶汽车，其他业界巨头也不惜重金投资人工智能，不过Facebook和谷歌钱袋最鼓、有最多数据可供分析，因此能吸引到最优秀的研究人员和最具潜力的创业公司。在由语音控制的个人助理领域，Facebook落后于亚马逊、苹果、谷歌和微软;而在聊天机器人领域，它的对手是微软以及诸多急于证明机器人是新应用的创业公司。虚拟现实领域被扎克伯格视作“增强现实”(AR)的踏脚石，AR即信息被叠加在真实世界上的技术。进军这一领域也让Facebook和强敌正面交锋。微软凭借其多年来最引人瞩目的产品HoloLens头盔直接挺进AR，而在VR领域已十分活跃的谷歌已经投资了Magic Leap，一家鲜为人知的AR创业公司。
The scale of Facebook’s ambition, and the rivalries it faces, reflect a consensus that these technologies will transform how people interact with each other, with data and with their surroundings. AI will help devices and services anticipate your needs (Google’s Inbox app already suggests replies to your e-mails). Conversational interfaces will let you look things up and get things done by chatting to a machine by voice or text. And intelligent services will spread into a plethora of products, such as wearable devices, cars and VR/AR goggles. In a decade’s time computing seems likely to take the form of AR interfaces mediated by AI, using gestures and speech for inputs and the whole world as its display. Information will be painted onto the world around you, making possible new forms of communication, creativity and collaboration.
Facebook的雄心壮志及其面临的竞争反映出一个共识，即这些技术将转变人与人之间、人与数据之间、人与周围环境之间的互动方式。人工智能会帮助设备和服务预测你的需求(谷歌的Inbox应用已经能对如何回复电子邮件提出建议)。会话接口能让你通过语音或文字与机器对话来查阅信息和完成任务。智能服务将扩展到太多产品中，如可穿戴设备、汽车和VR/AR眼镜等。十年之内，计算看似有可能采取增强现实界面，以人工智能为媒介，用手势和语音进行输入，将整个世界作为它的显示器。信息将被叠映在你周围的世界之上，让新形式的交流、创造与合作成为可能。
This is the ambitious vision that Facebook, Google, Microsoft and other technology giants are working towards. But along the way there are certain to be privacy and security concerns. Crunching all that information to provide personalised services looks a lot like surveillance, and will cause a backlash if consumers do not feel they are getting a good deal in return for handing over their personal details (as the advertising industry is discovering to its cost) – or if security is inadequate.
这是Facebook、谷歌、微软及其他科技巨头为之努力奋斗的恢弘愿景。但沿途必定会有隐私和安全问题。分析所有信息以提供个性化的服务看起来很像监控，并且如果消费者感觉在提交个人详细资料后并没有获得大量回报(广告业吃过苦头后正在明白这一点)，又或者安全性不足，会引发激烈反对。
Power from the people
人的力量
There will also be worries about concentration and monopoly, and the danger of closed ecosystems that make it hard for people to switch between services. Facebook’s plan to offer free access to a limited subset of websites was blocked by India’s telecoms regulator, which argued that it was “risky” to allow one company to act as a gatekeeper. And Germany’s competition authority is investigating the way Facebook handles personal data. As its dominance grows, Facebook can expect to face more such cases, as Microsoft and Google did before it.
也有人会担心集中、垄断以及封闭式生态系统的危险，让人很难在各种服务之间切换。Facebook提供免费接入一些指定网站的计划被印度电信监管部门阻拦，它们认为让一家公司来把关“太过危险”。德国的竞争主管机构正在调查Facebook处理个人信息的方式。随着其统治地位的不断加强，可以预见Facebook会遭遇更多此类情况，正如微软和谷歌所经历的那样。
Striking a balance between becoming ever more intimately entwined in billions of peoples’ lives, making huge profits as a result and avoiding a backlash will be one of the biggest business challenges of the century. Even in ancient Rome, emperors could find that the crowd suddenly turned against them. So applaud Mr Zuckerberg – and fear for him, too.
既能和数十亿人的生活更紧密地交织在一起，又可借此获得巨额利润并且避免强烈反对，如何在其间取得平衡将成为本世纪最大的商业挑战之一。即便是在古罗马，帝王们也会发现民众会突然转而反抗他们。所以为扎克伯格鼓掌，也为他担忧吧。
Clusterluck
集群之幸
Boston’s biotech hub is surviving the challenge from Silicon Valley
Distance is not dead. In biotechnology, as in other tech-based industries, the clustering of similar firms is more important than ever. Some American biotech startups are based in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley area, huddled with its many digital and IT startups. But the Boston metropolitan area – and in particular Cambridge, across the Charles river from central Boston – seems to be holding its own as the world’s pre-eminent biotech hub.
距离并未消亡。与其他以技术为基础的行业一样，在生物技术领域，同类公司的集群比以往任何时候都更为重要。一些美国生物技术创业公司把总部设在旧金山和硅谷地区，跟当地的众多数字及IT创业公司扎堆。然而，波士顿大都会区——特别是与波士顿市中心隔查尔斯河相望的剑桥市——俨然已能与之抗衡而成为世界上卓越的生物技术中心。
The San Francisco area’s pool of venture capital is beyond compare; and a biotech-industry body there, the California Life Sciences Association, argues that California is the number one state for biomedical employment. But in part that is simply a reflection of the state’s large population, which means its health-care business is necessarily big. The Massachusetts Biotechnology Council claims that its state employs more people in biotech research and development than any other.
旧金山地区的风险投资资源是别处无可比拟的。当地的生物技术行业团体“加利福尼亚生命科学协会”(California Life Sciences Association)认为，加利福尼亚是生物医学就业第一州。但这在某种程度上只是该州庞大人口数量的表现，人口众多意味着其医疗保健产业必然庞大。马萨诸塞州生物技术委员会(Massachusetts Biotechnology Council)声称，该州在生物技术研发领域的就业人数超过其他任何一个州。
A study published last December by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that although, per head, the Boston area had fallen well behind San Francisco and Silicon Valley in creating software and internet startups, it was more or less keeping pace in life sciences. The density of research institutions in Massachusetts means that it receives $351 per head in funding from the National Institutes of Health, well ahead of the Golden State’s $88. This density of research was a reason cited by General Electric, which has a big medical-technology division, in its announcement in Janurary that it will move its group headquarters to Boston.
去年12月，麻省理工学院公布的一项研究发现，波士顿地区虽然在人均创建软件和互联网创业公司的数量上远落后于旧金山与硅谷，但在生命科学领域不相上下。麻省密集的研究机构使它从美国国立卫生研究院(National Institutes of Health)获得人均351美元的资金，远超过“黄金之州”(加利福尼亚)的人均88美元。拥有庞大医疗技术部门的通用电气1月宣布将把集团总部迁往波士顿，它提到该地区研究机构的高密度是一大原因。
The history of the Boston area cluster can be traced to the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Biogen and Genzyme, two biotech drugmakers, were founded by scientists from nearby academic institutions. Other scientists, especially from MIT and Harvard, Cambridge’s two internationally renowned universities, followed suit and created innovative startups of their own.
波士顿地区产业集群的历史可以追溯到上世纪70年代末和80年代初。当时，周边学术机构的科学家建立了生物技术制药企业百健(Biogen)和健赞(Genzyme)。其他科学家纷纷效法，创建了自己的创新型创业公司，尤其是来自麻省理工和哈佛的科学家，这两所国际知名大学都位于剑桥市。
This encouraged global pharmaceutical giants, struggling with poor productivity in their existing research facilities, to set up labs in and around Cambridge. Novartis of Switzerland began work on its outpost in 2002, followed by such names as AstraZeneca of Britain and Baxter of Illinois, which in 2015 spun out its Cambridge labs as Baxalta, a specialist in “orphan” diseases. In Janurary Baxalta agreed a $32 billion takeover by Shire, an Irish drugs giant.
这促使那些苦于现有研究设施生产力低下的全球制药巨头在剑桥及其周边建立实验室。瑞士诺华(Novartis)2002年开始在此设点，紧接着是英国的阿斯利康(AstraZeneca)和美国伊利诺伊州的百特(Baxter)。2015年，百特把它的剑桥实验室拆分出来，成立了专攻罕见病的Baxalta公司。今年1月，Baxalta同意被爱尔兰制药巨头Shire公司以320亿美元收购。
The cluster lacked a clear focal point until 2010, when MIT, the main landowner around Kendall Square – an area about a mile in all directions from the Kendall/MIT subway station in Cambridge – decided to spruce it up. One report suggests the square currently hosts firms that have absorbed about $14 billion in venture-capital investments. Silicon Valley’s overall pool of capital may be deeper, but much of it flows to areas other than biotech. And the global drug giants with outposts in the Boston area provide an alternative source of finance, and of eventual buyers for startups.
这里的产业集群一直缺少一个明确的中心，直到2010年，肯德尔广场(Kendall Square)的主要所有者麻省理工学院决定把这片以肯德尔/麻省理工地铁站为中心、半径约一英里的区域修葺一新。一份报告表明，目前在肯德尔广场设立的公司总共吸收了大约140亿美元的风险投资。硅谷的整体风投资源可能更为深厚，但大部分资金都流向了生物技术以外的领域。在波士顿地区设点的全球制药巨头提供了另一种资金来源，也为创业公司增加了潜在的最终买家。
Tom Andrew of Alexandria Real Estate, a property agent specialising in science buildings, notes that the Boston area’s universities, teaching hospitals and other institutions are a sink, as well as a source, of talent. Anyone who accepts a risky job at a startup can be sure that if things don’t work out there are lots of big employers nearby to fall back on.
专注于科学楼宇的房地产经纪公司“亚历山大房地产”(Alexandria Real Estate )的汤姆·安得鲁(Tom Andrew)表示，波士顿地区的大学、教学医院及其他机构既是人才之源，又是人才之库。在创业企业中承担有风险工作的所有人都可以放心，如果工作不顺利，附近会有许多大雇主可以转投。
The cluster’s promising young firms include four – Editas Medicine, CRISPR Therapeutics, Intellia and Bluebird Bio – that are working on “gene editing”, currently one of the hottest areas of biotech. WuXi NextCODE, another local startup, specialises in analysing genomes. Alnylam concentrates on drugs that interfere with RNA, the messenger molecule through which genes express themselves. Not satisfied with just editing, deciphering or blocking nature’s blueprints, Synlogic is seeking to create medicines through entirely artificial sequences of genes.
集群中有前途的新兴企业包括Editas医药公司(Editas Medicine)、CRISPR疗法公司(CRISPR Therapeutics)、Intellia和蓝鸟生物(Bluebird Bio)。这四家公司正致力于研究“基因剪辑”，这是当今生物技术中最热门的领域之一。另一家本地创业公司明码生物科技(WuXi NextCODE)专门从事基因组分析。奥尼兰姆公司(Alnylam)专注研究干扰RNA的药物，RNA是基因自我表达的信使分子。Synlogic公司不满足于只是剪辑、解码或者阻断基因组这一自然的蓝图，还试图通过合成完全人工的基因序列来开发药物。
Synlogic’s boss, Jose-Carlos Gutiérrez-Ramos, formerly of Pfizer, has worked around the world and praises the “density of intellectuals” in Boston and the opportunities that come from being able to make easy connections. With little travel time between appointments, it is easier to arrange meetings. Dan Budwick of Pure Communications, a public-relations firm which represents some of the area’s startups, says that “You can jump on a bike and see 30 companies in a mile. You can’t do that in San Francisco or Manhattan.”
Synlogic的老板、原辉瑞公司的何塞-卡洛斯·古铁雷斯-拉莫斯(Jose-Carlos Gutiérrez-Ramos)曾在世界各地工作过，他称赞波士顿“知识分子密集”，能够很容易地建立人脉关系并从中找到机会。由于约会之间花费在交通上的时间很短，安排会议比较容易。代表该地区一些创业企业的公关公司 “单纯沟通”(Pure Communications)的丹·布德威克(Dan Budwick)说：“你可以跳上一辆自行车，在一英里内见到30家公司。这在旧金山或曼哈顿就不行。”
Boston’s tech cluster has a different vibe from Silicon Valley’s in other ways too. Edward Farmer of WuXi NextCODE says Boston’s biotech crowd are a more formal bunch, who wear proper shirts – and tuck them in. They know which fork is for the salad because salad is not the only thing they eat. Beer is the recreational drug of choice, rather than cannabis.
在其他方面，波士顿的高科技集群也与硅谷的氛围不同。明码生物科技的爱德华·法默(Edward Farmer)表示，波士顿的生物科技从业者举止更规矩，他们穿合适的衬衫，还把下摆塞进裤子里。他们知道哪一个叉子是吃沙拉的，因为他们不只吃沙拉。首选的休闲毒品是啤酒而不是大麻。
The cranes sprouting across the skyline suggest more growth ahead. But demand is still running ahead of supply. In the Boston area rents for laboratory space rose by 7% last year to around $47 a square foot ($505 a square metre), compared with $37 in San Francisco. Already, some companies are having to seek space in districts like Alewife or Watertown, on the far side of Harvard’s campus.
穿越天际线不断涌现的起重机表明，未来将有更多发展。但目前依然是供不应求。在波士顿地区，实验室的租金去年上涨了7%，达到每平方英尺47美元(每平方米505美元)，相比之下，旧金山的租金为37美元。已有一些公司在哈佛校园另一边的埃尔维夫(Alewife)和沃特敦(Watertown)等区域寻找办公地点。
Though it is on a roll, the Boston biotech cluster must keep a nervous eye on its West Coast rival, especially if, in future, biotech ventures come to rely on software, wearable sensors and big-data analysis, areas in which Silicon Valley is strong. At least that is a problem it can try to address. The weather is not. The biggest annual jamboree for investors in biotech, organised by J.P. Morgan, a bank, opened in Janurary in its customary location of San Francisco. The temperature was a balmy 13º Celsius, to Boston’s shivering -1 º.
尽管顺风顺水，波士顿的生物技术产业集群还是必须紧张地关注它在西海岸的竞争对手，尤其是假如生物技术企业今后要开始依赖软件、可穿戴传感器和大数据分析等硅谷强项的话。至少，这个问题是它可以试图解决的。但天气就不是了。生物科技投资者最大的年度盛会已于1月按惯例在旧金山举行，活动由摩根大通银行(J.P. Morgan)组织。当地气温13摄氏度，温暖宜人，而波士顿为零下1度，冷得让人直打寒颤。
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