Though a latecomer to the voice computing field, the Shenzhen-based company aims to catch up with existing players on the back of its sprawling ecosystem and increasing investments in speech recognition and natural language processing capabilities. In late June, Tencent unveiled Xiaowei, an intelligent voice computing platform developed on the basis of WeChat's voice recognition technology. Tencent's Chinese peers Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Baidu Inc had also launched similar open voice computing platforms, in the hope that more third-party service partners will connect with their digital assistants. The Xiaowei platform came into being after Tencent established its first US-based AI research laboratory in Seattle in May. "In the past 18 years, Tencent has accumulated rich resources in these aspects, which are important basics to develop AI," Yu said.

Source: The China Post July 23, 2017 20:03 UTC