Iflytek Receives Multi-Million Dollar Investment from Chinese Government
iFlytek is a Chinese IT company that’s recognized worldwide for its voice recognition software. It offers a wide range of voice-related services in the field of communication, music, education, etc. Listed in the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the company has a market capitalization of 25 billion renminbi. China’s state investors are highly interested in supporting iFlytek’s technology. To show this interest they have made an investment of US$407 to the iFlytek fund.
The company’s Artificial Intelligence speech platform is expected to receive an investment of 2 billion Yuan. 1.18 billion Yuan from that investment are from a private placement whereas the remaining is expected to be from the Chinese Government. iFlytek plans to use this multi-million dollar investment for research in platforms for smart speech, advanced generation cognitive technology and robots.
The news of the recent development of iFlytek has attracted a lot of investment companies such as Anhui Development Investment Company, Anhui Smart Voice, Anhui Intelligence Venture, etc. China Reform Holdings, an investment vehicle funded by the Chinese Government also showed initiative in the iFlytek’s technologies.
IFlytek’s headquarter is located in Hefei, the capital city of Anhui. The company has established itself as China’s leading creator of cutting-edge speech recognition, evaluation and language processing technologies. In 2017, the Chinese Government chose iFlytek to lead the state’s progress in voice intelligence technologies followed by the development of innovation platforms.
The company’s Artificial Intelligence speech open platform is projected to be the biggest receiver of new funds since iFlytek has decided to invest around $3 billion in the project. The recent China-US tech war has placed iFlytek on the front-line because of its advancement in Artificial Intelligence technologies and start-support. Whether the company should be allowed to purchase components or software from the USA or not is still under debate. Huawei and iFlytek are both technological giants in China specializing in different sectors however both have received major backlash due to China-US war. The USA also imposed a ban on Huawei in the beginning of 2019. However after Donald Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the ban was disengaged. iFlytek and Huawei technologies have also joined hands to form a partnership for the development of phone applications for voice and AI technologies. Two of China’s top mutual fund organizations China Asset Management and Harvest Fund Management have financially backed iFlytek due to its growing popularity in China.