New | Intel leads US$100m funding round for Chinese AI start-up Horizon Robotics
Horizon founder Yu Kai, a former leading AI scientist at Baidu, says the company’s goal is to become “the Intel of the AI age”
Horizon Robotics, the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up, expects to close a US$100 million funding round led by Intel Capital – the global chip giant’s venture capital arm – by the end of this year.
Other investors in the round including China-based Harvest Investments and Morningside Venture Capital.
Intel said the funding in Horizon was part of a series of investments worth more than US$60 million it has made recently in 15 global tech start-ups, focused on data.
Beijing-based Horizon said in a live webcast in San Francisco run by Intel the funds will be used to speed up its research and development of AI technology, and its related products.
Horizon was founded in 2015 by Yu Kai, a former head of Baidu’s Institute of Deep Learning, and builds chips to power artificial intelligence in self-driving vehicles and smart cameras.
Yu was previously quoted as saying by various media sources that the company’s goal is to become “the Intel of the AI age”, just as Intel was one of the icons of the PC era.
