Fu Sheng, CEO of the leading mobile internet company Cheetah Mobile, announced on Wednesday at the Cheetah Mobile Connect Conference that the company will invest USD 50 million in making Cheetah robots and welcomes top talent from around the globe to join their mission.
“I‘ve been planning to set up a robotics company since a year ago,” said Fu, who didn’t go into specifics about what the robots will do. “With the development of deep learning and technology such as voice recognition and image recognition, AI will set people free from repeated physical and even mental tasks.”
He mentioned later in an dialogue with the author of The Rise of Data Religion Yuval Noah Harari that even when robots one day become as intelligent as human beings, there’s not much to fear. Fu said that when we are set free from the shackles of repeated tasks, our consciousness and creativity will have more space to roam about.
Fu said that considering Cheetah Mobile’s background and advantages, the company will focus on R&D on technology and technological products, which he believes will accelerate what he calls the “revolution of algorithms”.
Fu said that Cheetah Mobile’s main task in 2016 is to connect its 600 million users around the world with content including news, videos and even mobile advertisements.
Data from Cheetah Mobile shows that, as of January 31, 2016, the company’s mobile apps have been installed on 2.34 billion Android devices, and it has 635 million monthly active users globally. 74% of its users are from overseas markets, according to Cheetah Mobile’s 2015 Q3 report.
(Top photo taken from the Cheetah Mobile Connect Conference)