iFlyTek to support automotive AI incubator program in Chongqing | Biometric Update

Chinese voice biometric systems developer iFlyTek has entered into collaboration with the Chongqing Economic and Technological Development Zone to nurture and mature over 100 artificial intelligence and automotive ecological startups within five years through an incubator program.

The program will happen via the setting up of an ‘AI+ Automotive Ecology Acceleration Center,’ according to iChongqing, a publication of the Chongqing International Communication Center.

Apart from developing these startups, the project intends to create over 20 AI automotive projects. It will also introduce iFlyTek’s advantages in AI, resources, and industrial ecology solutions to its intelligent automobile eco-partners, according to the announcement. The company’s solutions include multi-microphone array noise reduction and biometric identification.

The incubator program by iFlyTek is part of the company’s efforts to develop Chongqing’s automotive technology industry and that of the Asia-Pacific region. iFlyTek claims its technologies have already been adopted by more than 90 percent of the JV and independent auto manufacturers in China.

According to the firm, these efforts started when it opened its southwest headquarters in the Chongqing Economic and Technological Zone, where it put in place a team and set up the iFlyTek Southwest Automotive Research Institute. It also sealed other partnership deals with some local vehicle manufacturers.

iChongqing recalls another deal signed in 2018 between iFlyTek and the Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications to develop AI disciplines and research capable of triggering innovation in the automotive AI industry.

In 2021, iFlyTek was reported to have provided grants to two Canadian universities in 2015 and 2019 for different voice biometrics research projects.