With Cheetah Robotics launch, software giant wants to create China's first global tech brand

When Cheetah Mobile CEO Sheng Fu went to the US for the first time five years ago, he asked himself, "Why is that Chinese companies work so hard but the most important inventions and new technologies come out of America?" He concluded that the difference between China and the US is that Americans think bigger and dream bigger. This week in Beijing, Fu announced his company is going to launch itself into AI and deep learning, create a dual headquarters in Beijing and Silicon Valley, and release robots for consumers on a global scale. No one is going to accuse Fu of not thinking big enough. He wants to turn a Chinese company that makes smartphone utilities and mobile games into a multinational powerhouse that builds some of the world's smartest consumer-facing robots to automate people's most mundane tasks. More precisely, Cheetah Robotics will be a spin-off, an independent subsidiary of Cheetah Mobile.