China Daily (Hong Kong)

Face of the future

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Council on Thursday. Voice computing is an important part of that ambitious goal, which the private sector is determined to reach.

For instance, on July 5, e-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group Holding Ltd unveiled its Tmall Genie X1, its voice-driven digital speaker, which is modeled on Amazon.com Inc’s Echo and Google’s Home.

The same day, Baidu Inc, the Chinese internet search leader, showcased its Mandarin-speaking DuerOS personal assistant.

Such voice-based speakers can stream music, newscasts, so on, and can be improved to perform other tasks.

Toward that end, Baidu announced a new deal to acquire a startup specializi­ng in the developmen­t of voice recognitio­n technology.

Not to be left behind, Tencent Holdings Ltd, China’s social networking and gaming titan, is developing its own voice-based speaker for launch within months.

Huawei Technologi­es Co Ltd, the world’s third-largest smartphone manufactur­er, jumped onto the voice-based technology bandwagon, hiring more than 100 researcher­s to work on developing a Siri-like assistant.

According to a Bloomberg report, more than 60 companies in China are working with US-based Conexant Systems Inc, an audio technology player, to introduce voice-activated intelligen­t devices.

“Voice interactio­n, though still nascent, will be of utmost importance in future. In the internet-of-things era, most internet-connected devices won’t have screens. Voice control will be the most convenient way to interact with them,” said Liu Xingliang, president of the Data Center of China Internet, a Beijing-based market research company.

Recent facts and figures appear to back Liu’s vision. In China, the speech recognitio­n market expanded by about 40 percent to 4.03 billion yuan ($635 million) in 2015, faster than the $6.12 billion global market which grew at 34 percent, according to a report by the Speech Industry Alliance of China.

The China market is expected to grow almost 70 percent year-on-year to 10.07 billion yuan in sales this year. Some 2 million smart speakers will likely be shipped in China this year, a fraction of the 14 million in the US; and 22 million will be sold in China in 2022, according to Counterpoi­nt Research estimates.

With potential applicatio­ns of the technology growing by the day on the back of constant improvemen­ts, Grand View Research projects the global market will reach $128 billion in 2024.

“... it’s a combinatio­n of quality and innovation that is linked to growth and demand.” Jeffrey Lu, chief executive officer of Mengniu sales of the speech recognitio­n segment in China in 2015

That kind of optimism stems from the high level of accuracy of the technology. For instance, in 2015, Andrew Ng, former chief scientist at Baidu, said the technology was about 95 percent accurate. Stated differentl­y, devices were able to hear and act on about 19 out of 20 words correctly.

That is, there were not too many serious risks to consumers seen arising from devices mishearing words and acting in ways contrary to commands.

And now, the accuracy rate is said to be higher — 97 to 98 percent. Baidu and iFlytek Co Ltd are leading the voice technology pack.

To be sure, technologi­cal hurdles exist. James Yan, research director at Counterpoi­nt, said, “More efforts are needed so that third-party services can be swiftly activated through voice control.”

Improvemen­ts are coming at a faster rate than expected as big data is crunched, analyzed and made to yield insights, which, in turn, are opening up voice recognitio­n platforms to third-party services, according to Analysys, a Beijing-based market research company.

With market potential increasing, Chinese companies are scrambling to unveil always-on listening devices that are eager to communicat­e or interact with their “masters”.

For instance, e-commerce giant Alibaba is emulating Amazon in envisionin­g a central role for voice-driven smart speakers that consumers can use to control almost everything at home.

Its Tmall Genie X1 speaker can simplify online shopping by executing purchases based on voice commands.

Similarly, JD.com Inc, another leading online marketplac­e, has unveiled several versions of smart speakers by using iFlytek’s voice recognitio­n technology.

JD said it sold around 10,700 speakers during last year’s Nov 11 online shopping festival and the following two weeks.

“Many domestic players are inspired by (Amazon) Echo’s phenomenal success in the United States,” said Zhang Yin, an analyst at Orient Securities.

In the fourth quarter of 2016, the Echo accounted for about 88 percent of shipments of 4.2 million intelligen­t home speakers in the US. In that quarter, US shipments were up nearly 600 percent year-on-year, according to Strategy Analytics.

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