(Yicai Global) Nov. 29 -- Internet search giant Baidu Inc. [NASDAQ:BIDU] and leading Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Inc. said that they agreed to establish an in-depth cooperation on artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IOT) at Xiaomi's first IoT Developer Conference yesterday.

The companies will work together in areas such as knowledge graphs, deep learning, computer vision, natural language processing, human-computer interaction, robotics, self-driving cars, AI chips, augmented reality and virtual reality.

The firms will be able to provide users with better experiences by leveraging Xiaomi's experience in applications, smart hardware, big data and the smart device ecosystem as well as Baidu's DuerOS conversational AI system, hordes of data, knowledge graphs and information ecosystems.

The partnership marks a significant step in boosting China's smart manufacturing. Baidu and Xiaomi will apply AI technologies to the Internet of Things and AI products to apply more AI and Internet of Things technologies.

Xiaomi's IoT platform connects more than 85 million devices, linking over 10 million of them simultaneously, making it the world's largest smart hardware platform.