Chinese phone maker Xiaomi recently released its first-quarter financial report, revealing a total revenue of RMB 59.5 billion ($8.4 billion). This figure reflects a 18.9% year-on-year decline, which is significant considering the global smartphone shipment decline of only 13.3% in the same period. Further, Xiaomi’s smartphone shipments saw a 21.1% decline compared to the first quarter of the previous year, dropping from 38.5 million units to 30.4 million units. In response, Xiaomi’s president Lu Weibing discussed the company’s AI aspirations in an interview with Shanghai-based state media outlet The Paper.
The Paper reported that Xiaomi had established an AI Lab Foundation Model team in April, which consists of over 1,200 employees specializing in artificial intelligence. Furthermore, Lu reaffirmed that Xiaomi does not intend to replicate OpenAI’s AI model ChatGPT. Instead, the company seeks to maximize efficiency by expanding AI-related user scenarios and exploring potential partnerships.
Xiaomi is a Chinese electronics company founded in 2010. It is a leading brand in the ultra-competitive smartphone market and offers affordable PCs, laptops, tablets, and other linked products and services. Xiaomi also integrates AI into their products, having developed its own artificial intelligence system, AIOT. AIOT is a combination of AI, big data, and cloud computing and has been implemented into Xiaomi products such as smartphones and TVs.
Lu Weibing is the president of Xiaomi. An electrical engineering graduate from Tsinghua Unversity in Beijing, Lu started as an engineer in Microsoft Research Asia, becoming the first college student hired out of thousands of applicants. After spearheading the development of Windows Mobile, he became vice president of Microsoft. Later, Lu joined Google, where he briefly served as the general manager of Google China. Afterwards, following Leijun’s invitation, Lu joined Xiaomi as vice president. In 2019, Lu was promoted to president of Xiaomi’s consumer products division.
