In a recent interview, Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi Group, shared his insights on artificial intelligence and revealed that if Xiaomi had not decided to enter the automotive manufacturing sector in 2021, the company might now be focusing more on the AI field.
Lei Jun pointed out that even while manufacturing cars, Xiaomi's development in artificial intelligence has not lagged behind the industry. He emphasized that Xiaomi has actually been actively engaged in AI-related work, albeit with relatively less external publicity.
Lei Jun mentioned that Xiaomi had already started fully investing in the AI field as early as 2016, with several thousand professional staff dedicated to related R&D work. Lei Jun himself has a profound understanding of AI, having studied a large number of AI-related courses over 30 years ago, and has a certain level of knowledge in AI. However, he admitted that his main focus in the past two years has been on the automotive project, so his investment in the AI field has been relatively less.
Additionally, Xiaomi recently announced a comprehensive upgrade of the XiaoAI assistant model, which will cover multiple core product lines including smartphones, tablets, TVs, speakers, and cars, adding features such as AI image editing and vehicle wake-up defense.