Microsoft and Xiaomi may co-create smart speakers

Microsoft and Xiaomi have signed a memorandum of understanding stating that the two companies would like to work more closely together and leverage each other’s strengths. There is talk of a smart speaker from the two companies.

The memorandum states that Xiaomi and Microsoft are in talks about a possible smart speaker equipped with Cortana and running on the hardware of the Xiaomi Mi AI Speaker, which costs 38 euros converted. The current AI of that speaker only understands Chinese, so with this move the speaker can also be brought to western markets.

The announcement also states that Xiaomi can make greater use of Microsoft’s cloud service Azure and that it can leverage US support in developing and releasing Xiaomi laptops. The two companies also want to collaborate on AI-powered applications such as text-to-speech, natural language processing, conversational AI, but also concrete, existing apps such as Bing, Edge, Skype and Swiftkey.

The companies have been working together to a greater or lesser extent for some time. In 2015, Xiaomi already started using Azure indirectly. Since 2016, Microsoft apps such as Skype and Office have also been pre-installed on Xiaomi phones. With this announcement, the two parties therefore express their intention to expand this further. This memorandum is not binding.

Despite the fact that the companies are not obliged to do anything, the decision is still striking. Earlier this year, US intelligence agencies advised their compatriots not to buy phones from Chinese manufacturers ZTE and Huawei due to concerns about espionage. The US government is also working on a bill to ban the use of Chinese telephones by government agencies. Telco’s AT&T and reportedly also Verizon have stopped offering Huawei phones, under government pressure.