Xiaodu Technology developed the DuerOS artificial intelligence powered voice assistant system, which helps users in controlling their smart televisions, smart speakers, smart refrigerators, and other smart home appliances
Xiaodu Technology is a spin-off of Chinese tech giant Baidu. (Credit: simone.brunozzi/Wikimedia Commons)
Chinese technology company Baidu said that its artificial intelligence (AI) based voice assistant spin-off company Xiaodu Technology has closed a Series B funding round at a valuation of $5.1bn.
The company will continue to be a super majority shareholder in Xiaodu Technology.
Baidu did not reveal the exact amount raised and details of investors who had taken part in the Series B round.
Xiaodu is the developer of the DuerOS AI-powered voice assistant system. DuerOS helps users in controlling their televisions, speakers, and other smart home appliances by using voice commands.
Some of the manufacturers implementing the DuerOS technology are TCL, Vivo, Haier, Foxconn, hTC, Lenovo, and others.
Launched in 2017, the conversational AI system is said to have skills in 10 major domains and more than 200 sub-domains. It is embedded with AI speech and image recognition technology.
DuerOS is said to enable users to use natural language to carry out tasks like searching for information, getting weather updates, checking traffic conditions, and others.
The conversational AI system is also designed to help turn any product with a microphone and speaker into a smart device.
Baidu CSO and CFO Herman Yu said: “We are pleased to see the rapid growth of Xiaodu, leveraging Baidu’s AI and large content and services mobile ecosystem, to change the way hardware provides value for consumers. Xiaodu entered the market in 2018 with sub RMB 100 smart speakers and rapidly became the world’s largest smart-display provider based on shipments.
“DuerOS with voice modality and larger screen is growing Internet usage at home and becoming the command centre for IoTs, with its fast growth of OEM partnerships. Services revenue surpassed 10% of Xiaodu revenues in the most recent quarter, encompassing membership, advertising and skills store revenue share.”
In late 2020, Xiaodu had closed a Series A funding round at a valuation of $2.9bn.
Earlier this year, Baidu’s AI chip unit Kunlun had closed a funding round, that reportedly valued it at around $2bn. The Kunlun AI chip has been designed for handling AI models for edge computing on devices and in the cloud through data centres.