iFlytek delivers on promise to become major player

Liu Qingfeng, chairman of iFlytek Co, can say he has done what he promised President Xi Jinping five years ago.

During a panel discussion with legislators from Anhui province at the annual plenary session of the National People's Congress in 2014, which Xi attended, Liu vowed to make his company a dominant power in the industry.

Since then, iFlytek, China's leading speech-recognition company, has won a raft of awards - 12 in worldwide speech and AI competitions in 2018 alone, including the Blizzard Challenge, said to be the most authoritative international competition in speech synthesis.