Chinese search engine giant Baidu has been exploring the world of artificial intelligence (AI) for quite some time now. The company has been using machine learning techniques, big data and image and speech recognition systems in the development of smart and intelligent technologies and products: From its search engine and self-driving cars, to robotics and voice or speech recognition systems - that can interact with humans.

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In the speech recognition realm, Baidu's Silicon Valley AI Lab (SVAIL) has been working on a speech recognition system called Deep Speech. The latest system called "Deep Speech 2" is said to be capable of recognizing both Mandarin Chinese and English speech while relying entirely on machine learning for translation.

In one recent interview with Bloomberg, head AI scientist at Baidu, Andrew Ng, had expressed excitement and interest in speech recognition systems used in mobile devices for human-machine interaction. He said they are hoping to give smartphones the ability to recognize users' speech so that users can easily interact with their devices by speaking instead of using keyboards.

Last year, the Chinese company had already introduced an AI "voice-activated" personal assistant named Duer to its mobile search app used by millions of users in China. Duer is said to be capable of making online purchases, booking flights, and providing recommendations, among many other things. Adding the ability to recognize speech in an AI assistant like Duer will definitely transform the way users interact with technology, said Mr. Ng.

In China, the number of mobile Internet users had reached 780 million in 2015 from about 557 million in the end of 2014, according to reports released by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) together with the Internet Society of China.

TagsArtificial Intelligence, AI, Baidu Inc., china search engine, Baidu Duer, Smartphone