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Ikea cooperates with Chinese technology company for first time

chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: Dec 3, 2018 L M S

At the 2018 Xiaomi AIoT (Artificial intelligence technology and the Internet of Things) developer conference, Lei Jun, founder of Xiaomi Technology, announced that Xiaomi Smart Home and the Internet of Things will advance into the markets of business travel, automobiles and home decoration.

Xiaomi sews up deals for smart homes. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

On the same day, Xiaomi and Ikea confirmed their global strategic cooperation, with the Xiaomi IoT platform to be applied in Ikea's smart home products.

From this month, all IKEA smart lighting products will be connected to the Xiaomi IoT platform. Users can use Ikea and Xiaomi App in combination to control IKEA intelligent lighting products, and realize equipment linkage control between IKEA smart lights and Xiaomi household appliances.

According to Anna Pawlak Kuliga, president of Ikea Retail China, this is the first time that IKEA has cooperated with a Chinese technology company. Against a background of new technologies, new trends and China's rapid development, IKEA is undergoing its own strategic transformation.

Xiaomi owns the largest IoT platform in the world. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Xiaomi also announced its cooperation with all-season hotels, cars and homes, and ikongjian at the conference. For instance, Xiaomi and the hotel company jointly developed a smart hotel system for the all-season hotels located in Hongqiao and Shanghai, enabling customers to use smart speakers to adjust the lighting, temperature and some hotel services.

In addition, Xiaomi also launched its developer incentive plan, which will create the “Xiaomi AIoT Developer Fund”. As a first step, 100 million yuan will be invested into the fund to motivate AI technology developers, hardware equipment manufacturers and AI technology companies.

According to the data released at the meeting, as of November 5 the Xiaomi IoT platform had connected over 132 million smart devices in more than 200 countries and regions around the world, and handled around 80 billion device requests each day.