Speech Valley to push voice-activated tech

Plans have been unveiled to build China's largest hub for companies developing speech recognition technologies and products in Hefei, Anhui province, to boost the artificial intelligence sector.

To realize the goal, the city has said it will expand Speech Valley, an industrial park forming part of the Hefei State High-Tech Industry Development Zone, to include at least 1,000 enterprises over the next three years.

"To make products more intelligent, they should be better able to understand human intentions. We think the most practical way to do this is by analyzing people's speech and the orders they give," said Zhang Youguo, deputy chief executive of iFlytek.