Local manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) has increased its stake in San Diego-headquartered artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Kneron Holding Corp (耐能) to enhance its AI development.
The iPhone assembler in a Taiwan Stock Exchange statement said that it had invested an additional US$14 million through subsidiary Icreate Investments to acquire 2,099,738 shares of Kneron as a long-term investment.
Before the US$14 million investment, Hon Hai already held 109,145 Kneron shares and the new investment increased its stake in the US start-up to 2.7024 percent of its Series B preferred shares.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
International news outlets have reported that Hon Hai’s investment in Kneron is targeting the start-up’s next generation of AI chips, which are expected to support Hon Hai’s smart manufacturing and electric vehicle development.
Kneron’s Web site says it was established in 2015 and now specializes in the development of integrated AI hardware and software solutions for vehicles, security and broader AI of Things applications.
The AI start-up said its innovations aim to empower the proliferation of accessible, low-latency and secure AI applications by creating networks of independently intelligent devices as enabled through full-stack Kneron solutions.
Kneron has offices in Taipei and Hsinchu, and in Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Hangzhou in China.
Other Kneron investors include Horizons Ventures Ltd (維港投資), which is owned by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), the Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund (阿里巴巴創業者基金) of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group (阿里巴巴) and US-based smartphone IC designer Qualcomm Inc.
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