Hon Hai Precision Industry, also known as Foxconn Technology Group, has set up a new artificial intelligence company in California's Silicon Valley to improve its AI-based industrial internet capabilities. The new company hopes to hire about 100 AI professionals from the area. "The Bay Area has been a high-tech innovation hub. It is the home to the best AI and data science talent in America," Chairman Terry Gou said in opening remarks for a talk on AI-enabled manufacturing at Stanford University on Friday. Gou has been traveling in the U.S. after breaking ground on a manufacturing complex in the state of Wisconsin on June 28.

Major iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry, also known as Foxconn, on Friday pledged to dedicate a minimum of $342 million to turn itself into a key artificial intelligence player as the Taiwanese tech conglomerate eyes new growth opportunities beyond smartphones. "We will at least invest some 10 billion New Taiwan dollars ($342 million) over five years to recruit top talent and deploy artificial intelligence applications in all the manufacturing sites," said Chairman Terry Gou. "It's likely that we could even pour in some $10 billion or more if we find the deployments are very successful or can really generate results," said Gou. Gou added that his company aimed to recruit up to 100 top AI experts globally and would open up thousands of jobs for young talent should they have good ideas on how to develop applications using machine learning and deep learning techniques. His team is already looking globally for different types of sensors that can be built into production line equipment to better sense, capture and process data, according to Gou. "We will become a global innovative AI platform rather than just a manufacturing company," said Gou. Foxconn's move to invest heavily in AI comes as it faces mounting challenges to grow its core manufacturing business as global smartphone demand slows. Although its largest customer Apple on Feb. 1 reported record revenue for the last holiday season quarter, the US tech group sold fewer units of the iPhone X than expected and gave a weak outlook for the current quarter.

Manufacturing giant Foxconn has said it will make a major investment in artificial intelligence-based R&D as it looks for new business growth opportunities in a cooling global smartphone market, Nikkei reports. "We will at least invest some 10 billion New Taiwan dollars ($342M) over five years to recruit top talent and deploy artificial intelligence applications in all the manufacturing sites," said chairman Terry Gou. "It's likely that we could even pour in some $10BN or more if we find the deployments are very successful or can really generate results." Gou added that the ambition is to become "a global innovative AI platform rather than just a manufacturing company". Data put out this week by Strategy Analytics records a 9 per cent fall in global smartphone shipments in Q4 2017 -- the biggest such drop in smartphone history -- which the analyst blames on the floor falling out of the smartphone market in China.

Chinese parts giant Foxconn will launch a second U.S. facility in Michigan that will focus on self-driving car development, the South China Morning Post reports. Foxconn founder Terry Gou said the advanced state of self-driving car development was part of the reason why the company made its move into Michigan. "Automotive development in the US is still more advanced than China," Gou said, according to the Post. Few details were available on the facility's cost, timeline to launch or exact scope. The news follows Foxconn's previous announcement that it was exploring making $10 billion in U.S. investments throughout the midwest.

China is ramping up its efforts to develop artificial intelligence in manufacturing to boost its productivity as well as create new momentum in the future market, an official at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said. The moves are part of the country's broad effort to integrate AI with the Made in China 2025 strategy, aiming to enhance efficiency and transform China into a global manufacturing powerhouse, according to Li Guanyu, deputy director of the information and software service division at the ministry. The ministry plans to release a white paper to drive the development of AI and its application in industries, Li said at the China International Big Data Industry Expo last month in Guiyang, Guizhou province. With its booming big data sector and mobile internet technologies, the nation has rapidly risen up the ranks of international AI research. The official said that now the country aims to use AI to drive the upgrade of its manufacturing, which is the backbone of the economy.

SoftBank Chairman and CEO, Masayoshi Son (C), Foxconn Chairman and CEO, Terry Gou (R), and Alibaba Group Executive Chairman Jack Ma (L) pose with Pepper, the world's first personal robot that can read emotions in 2015. When billionaire Terry Gou acknowledged eyeing a $7 billion U.S. investment at his New Year's press meeting in Taiwan, it solidified his role as the Third Musketeer in East Asia's emerging involvement in Donald Trump's "America First" push. Gou is the founder chairman of Foxconn Technology (aka Hon Hai Precision Industry), the biggest supplier of Apple iPhones and iPads as well as other brand-name devices. Foxconn does most of its assembly in mainland China. So when the 66-year-old Gou said talks had started on a display-screen plant that could create 30,000-50,000 U.S. jobs, his aims fell into place with earlier pronouncements by Asian tech tycoons Masayoshi Son and Jack Ma as they paid visits to Trump Tower after the new president's election.