The founder of Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi promoted the company's developer alliance of artificial intelligence (AI)-based Internet of things (IoT), a technology currently at the center of the so-called fourth industrial revolution, during an event on Wednesday, The Paper reported.
"As a pioneer in China's IoT industry, Xiaomi has formed a colossal ecological industrial chain of intelligent hardware," said Lei Jun, founder and CEO of Xiaomi. "Now that Chinese tech giants have all entered this industry, Xiaomi must become more open than before."
Xiaomi embarked on its exploration in the IoT industry four years ago. So far, the company's ecological industrial chain has included up to 100 Chinese IoT device developers.
According to Lei, Xiaomi will not be complacent about the current size of its IoT developer alliance. Instead, the company hopes to build partnerships with as many domestic IoT device developers as possible.
"Xiaomi is totally open-minded on this matter," said Lei. "We are opening our arms to welcome any IoT device developer."
Lei announced at the event that Xiaomi had established a foundation called the Xiaomi AIoT Developer Foundation to provide financial support for IoT developers and would inject 100 million yuan (14.4 billion U.S. dollars) into the foundation at the preliminary stage.
After four years of evolution beginning in 2014, Xiaomi has finally found its feet in the IoT industry by becoming a developer of intelligent IoT modules which, after being connected to traditional home appliances, can realize the so-called human-machine interaction.
Apart from expanding its domestic IoT developer alliance, the company is also partnering with a number of foreign multi-nationals to apply its IoT technology in people's life. It has, for instance, forged a strategic partnership with Swedish furniture giant IKEA to make intelligent lighting products which are expected to enter the Chinese market in December.
Data shows that Xiaomi has surpassed global tech giants including Apple and Google by creating more IoT products.
By the end of the third quarter of this year, the company had applied its IoT technology to as many as 132 million electronic devices around the globe, which ranked 1st in the world.
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