Li Auto, one of China’s closest rivals to US electric vehicle (EV) giant Tesla, is looking to reposition itself as an artificial intelligence (AI) company and produce humanoid robots one day, according to the founder, as mainland policymakers bet on robotics innovation to supercharge the economy amid rapid AI advances.
AI means “everything” for Li Auto’s future, founder and CEO Li Xiang said in a video published to the premium EV maker’s website on Wednesday. The company aims for its foundational AI model to become one of the top three in China in a few years, competing with major tech firms beyond the car industry, he said.
Li Auto will soon launch a mobile app for its AI assistant Lixiang Tongxue, built on its self-developed foundational model Mind GPT, Li added.
China’s four best-performing foundational AI models are from start-up ZhipuAI, AI pioneer SenseTime, smartphone maker Oppo and e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, according to the latest rankings by SuperClue, a benchmarking platform. Mind GPT was not ranked among the more than 40 models listed.
Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Li Auto’s AI push comes amid rapid development in AI technologies including large language models (LLMs), which underpin popular services, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT. At the same time, local governments across China have introduced policies to accelerate robotics innovations.
Source link
