UPDATED 13:35 EDT / APRIL 14 2017

EMERGING TECH

Baidu buys computer vision startup founded by Magic Leap veterans

Like Google Inc., Chinese search giant Baidu Inc. is investing heavily in building out its artificial intelligence capabilities.

The company announced on Thursday that it has acquired a U.S.-based startup called xPerception Technology Inc. as part of the effort. Founded by two former employees of Magic Leap Inc., the buzzy augmented reality startup, xPerception was working on a specialized chip for processing visual information before the buyout.

The team kept a fairly low profile, but its bare-bone landing page provides a few key details about the technology. For starters, the site specifies that the system is designed to be used in drones and augmented reality headsets with a small physical footprint. As a result, it’s safe to assume that xPerception’s module is fairly compact. The landing page claims that its chip collects is as “accurate as a PC,” which can be interpreted to mean it provides comparable performance to a desktop-grade processor.

That sounds similar to what a recently funded startup called Mythic Inc. is offering. The firm claims to have created a chip that can pack a desktop-grade graphics processing unit chip’s worth of processing power on a silicon die the size of a shirt button, which may provide an additional clue as to what xPerception’s module looks.

Either way, the technology is most likely at an early stage given the startup’s limited online presence. This in turn suggests that Baidu’s main motivation for acquiring xPerception was not so much to obtain its intellectual property as absorbing the team. Co-founders Bao Yingze and Chen Mingyu are both Ph.D.s who focused on computer vision during their postgraduate studies, a major asset amid the tech industry’s fierce competition over AI talent.

Baidu in particular needs every AI expert that it can find. The company recently revealed plans to open a new lab in Silicon Valley that will employ 150 researchers tasked with new finding applications for neural networks and developing software for self-driving cars. Baidu announced the move shortly after the departure of Chief Scientist Andrew Ng, a major authority on machine learning who helped launch its first Bay Area AI center in 2014.

Image: Robert Hof

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