Xiaomi Unveils MiMo AI Model
Xiaomi has officially thrown its hat into the ring of artificial intelligence development, unveiling its internally developed MiMo reasoning model. The smartphone and electric vehicle manufacturer announced on Friday that MiMo, an open-source model with 7 billion parameters, has demonstrated competitive performance against established models like OpenAI’s o1-mini and Alibaba’s QwQ-32B-Preview in areas such as mathematical reasoning and coding.
MiMo Model Outperforms Rivals in Key Areas
According to Xiaomi, MiMo is the company’s first large language model (LLM). It was trained entirely in-house by a specialised AI task force called Core, using reinforcement learning techniques. This development highlights Xiaomi’s strategic ambition to integrate generative AI across its wide range of hardware products. These include smartphones, electric vehicles, and smart home appliances.
This development aligns with earlier reports indicating Xiaomi’s substantial investment in computing infrastructure for AI training. Local media outlet Jiemian reported in December that the company had acquired approximately 10,000 graphics processing units to support its model development efforts. Xiaomi’s commitment to AI was further highlighted by its attempt to recruit Luo Fuli, a prominent figure in China’s AI research from DeepSeek, although she ultimately declined the offer.
Xiaomi Joins Competitive Chinese AI Landscape
Xiaomi’s entry into the AI model arena comes amidst intense competition in China, where major technology firms are leveraging their resources to develop foundational AI models with significant commercial potential. Just recently, Alibaba unveiled its third-generation Qwen AI models, boasting enhanced performance and multilingual capabilities. Other key players in this burgeoning market include ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, and Tencent Holdings, the operator of WeChat, as well as Baidu, which recently launched its advanced Ernie 4.5 Turbo model.
Eyes on the Future of Artificial General Intelligence
Despite entering the race after competitors like DeepSeek and Alibaba, Xiaomi expressed optimism about the long-term prospects of achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI). In its statement, the company acknowledged the current intense phase of AI model competition but asserted its belief that “the road to AGI is still very long.”
