Chinese voice recognition startup raises funds to boost AI tech

Chinese voice recognition startup AISpeech announced Tuesday that it has raised 500 million yuan ($76 million) in its latest round of financing as part of its broader push to accelerate the application of artificial intelligence in a wide range of sectors.

The new fundraising was led by Oriza Holdings, CMIG Capital, Shenzhen Capital Group Co Ltd, Foxconn Technology Group and Taiwan semiconductor company MediaTek Inc.

According to the company, this round of financing will be mainly used for accelerating technological innovation, industry expansion and talent recruitment.

"Starting such a business is like running a marathon. We will continue to promote technological innovation and integrate more advanced technologies into industries in the future," said Gao Shixing, co-founder and CEO of AISpeech.

Gao also noted that the company is making a voice recognition chip and will launch it in the second half of this year.

The Suzhou, Jiangsu province-based company, founded in 2007, has been focusing on natural language interaction technologies including speech recognition, speech synthesis and intelligent dialogue.