By CHENG Lu
Chatbot mania has taken a firm grip on China’s AI businesses. Everyone wants to become the maker of “China’s answer to ChatGTP,” or to be at least part of the process that makes it, to be within touching distance of someone who was part of the process, Xiao-i not least among them.
Shanghai Xiao-i Robot Technology Group, a Chinese artificial intelligence company that has claimed to be “the Chinese version of ChatGPT,” without much backing up its claims.
Xiao-i’s founder and CEO YUAN Hui said at the listing ceremony that the company had developed its own intelligent recognition platform and that Xiao-i held full intellectual property rights. The platform, Yuan claimed, is widely commercialized.
But the market wasn’t buying it, neither Yuan’s big talk nor Xiao-i shares. Xiao-i tanked on debut on Nasdaq. The stock opened at US.8 (47.36 yuan) on Thursday and closed 14.6 percent lower at US.81.
Xiao-i actually turned a profit in 2021, an almost unheard-of feature for China’s AI enterprises. Revenue in the first six months of last year was US$129 million, up by 45 percent year on year.
The company offers business solutions and services in AI that cover natural language processing, voice and image recognition, machine learning, and automatic computing. Xiao-i mainly provides clients with intelligent city, software and architecture design services with its AI technology.
