Microsoft and Roobo Signed A Memorandum of AI Industrial Cooperation

Technology Author: Linyan Feng Dec 23, 2018 07:57 PM (GMT+8)

The company's mission is beyond hardware. Selling robots requires marketing and dealerships resources while all software developing needs is engineering talents.

Dec 18, Microsoft and Roobo(儒博) signed a memorandum of AI industrial cooperation to research the application scenarios under education, internet, IoT(Internet of Things), IoV(Internet of Vehicles) and smart home using Artificial Intelligence technology, reported by iyiou.com. It's the second time the two companies build partnerships. May, they introduced Microsoft Speech Device SDK (MSDDK) tech together, the sleek and conical tabletop microphone array can effectively identify and tag multiple meeting participants.

A new smart meeting solution system is set to debut by Microsoft and Roobo. This system will serve as an efficient intelligent assistant providing voice recognition and minute taking. The system can connect with OA (office automation) and Email the company using.

Headquartered in Beijing, Roobo received USD 100 million in series A round funding led by Iflytek (Keda Xunfei) in 2016 and USD 53 million in series B funding by Seven Seas Partners on September 7, 2017. XIONG Minghua(熊明华), a former Tencent CTO appointed as the company’s CEO at that time.

Roobo is widely known for its remarkable Pudding Robot Series for children, a voice-controlled device equipped with interactive AI English teaching, audio for picture books, synchronized learning support for elementary school curriculums and video communications, which won the 2017 Red Dot Award for Best of the Best and 2017 CES ASIA for Best Robot Product.

The company's mission is beyond hardware. In late 2016, Roobo released ROS.AI, and AI system solutions platform, which provides developers with hardware modules, software systems and artificial intelligence services for application in home appliances, automobiles, and robotics. As Roobo's flagship Pudding Series is recognized as the benchmark in the education industry, Roobo is able to set their own standards and explore more standardization products and split them out to provide for customers. Roobo set the goal at that time that their core competitive edge is on software other than hardware and their core-team had deeply rooted technological genes. Selling robots requires marketing and dealerships resources while all software developing needs is engineering talents.