The Chinese partner of Honda, Toyota makes its voice heard to produce smarter cars

Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC) has tied up with Chinese voice specialist iFlyTek, the latest in a parade of automobiles marrying artificial intelligence to produce smart cars.

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GAC’s Trumpchi SUVs are displayed at the 17th Shanghai car show in April. Photo: Simon Song

Published: 7:37pm, 8 Dec 2017Updated: 8:22pm, 3 Jul 2018

Guangzhou Automobile Group, one of China’s largest state-owned carmakers, has formed a partnership with speech-recognition software specialist iFlyTek, taking a step forward in building next-generation vehicles.

GAC will use technology from iFlyTek in its smart vehicles that are under development, enabling drivers and passengers to better interact with the cars.

“The two companies have a consensus that intelligent voice interaction is the core technology to turn cars smarter,” GAC said in a statement.

GAC, also the joint venture partner of Japanese companies Toyota and Honda, has joined a clutch of mainland car manufacturers such as SAIC Motor and electric vehicle start-up Future Mobility actively working on digital transformation in the industry as they vie for a bigger share of the market in the next decade.

Earlier this year, it signed a strategic agreement with Tencent to use the internet giant’s artificial intelligence technologies to develop new cars connected by the internet of things.