One of the biggest players in China’s artificial intelligence industry, iFlytek, presented a five-year investment plan for the activity in Hong Kong on Friday, July 19.
In this case, the amount of financial injections is HK$400 million (US$51.2).
It is noteworthy that iFlytek has opened its international headquarters in Hong Kong. The company is registered in Shenzhen. This player in the Chinese artificial intelligence industry is known for its voice recognition technologies. The subsidiary Xunfei Healthcare has moved to new offices in Cyberport, a technology hub backed by the Hong Kong government.
The company said that the investment funds announced on Friday will be used to form a team of researchers and developers. It is known that this group of specialists will consist of 150 people. The team will carry out activities on the development of large language models and artificial intelligence apps intended for use in the areas of intelligent speech, education, and healthcare.
It is worth specifying that large language models are the technology on which generative AI services are based, including, for example, the world-famous ChatGPT.
During a conversation with media iFlytek senior vice-president Duan Dawei said that the investment amount announced on Friday in Hong Kong is an initial budget, which can be increased if the realization of intentions related to the region shows good performance. He also said that once the Hong Kong headquarters is up and running, the company plans to expand the market for its flagship product, which is an artificial intelligence model called Spark. Also, In this case, the consumer base for iFlytek’s speech recognition tools will be scaled.
As we have reported earlier, Anthropic and Menlo Ventures Partner on AI Fund.