Two iFlytek directors resigned on the same day, and co-founder Hu Yu focused on chip manufacturing

Mingmin from Aofei Temple
Quantum Bit Report | Public Account QbitAI

There have been major personnel changes at the top level of iFLYTEK.

Last night, iFlytek officially disclosed that Director and Vice President Hu Yu and Chen Tao submitted their resignation reports respectively, applying to resign from their relevant positions.

At the same time, it was announced that Jiang Tao, Vice President and Secretary of the Board of Directors, and Duan Dawei, Vice President and CFO, would be elected as non-independent director candidates.

The announcement revealed that after leaving iFlytek, Hu Yu and Chen Tao "will continue to contribute to the prosperity and development of iFlytek's artificial intelligence industry ecosystem."

Soon, the official WeChat and Weibo of "Hefei Hi-Tech Release" disclosed Chen Tao's whereabouts: Chen Tao is currently the vice chairman of Yanzhi Technology.

At the same time, we also found in a report that Hu Yu has been appointed as the chairman of Lingsi Technology.

Both of the above companies are affiliated ecological companies of iFLYTEK.

Hu Yu: Layout of AI chip research and development

One of the directors who submitted his resignation letter this time is Hu Yu , one of the founders of iFLYTEK.

According to public information, Hu Yu has been engaged in the research of intelligent voice core technology and voice database construction since 1997. He has participated in many national "863", Natural Science Foundation, and provincial and ministerial major R&D projects. He is the chief scientist of the national "863 Human-like Intelligence Project".

In 1999, Hu Yu co-founded iFLYTEK as one of the founders. He was responsible for the research and development and business management of the company's core technologies such as speech synthesis, recognition, and analysis, and later took over the management of the consumer BG.

As of the date of disclosure of the announcement, Hu Yu held 13,411,052 shares of iFLYTEK, accounting for approximately 0.6% .

Now, Hu Yu has become the chairman of Lingsi Technology .

Official information shows that Anhui Lingsi Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. is an important partner in the chip segment of iFlytek's "cloud-based chip" strategy .

It was established on April 9, 2020, focusing on the research and development of artificial intelligence chips and solutions, and is committed to building artificial intelligence end-side SoC chips in the AI+loT field.

Lingsi Technology's AI capabilities mainly focus on three areas: voice interaction, computer vision, and call noise reduction.

These are reflected in iFlytek's smart voice recorders, AI learning machines, smart car voice assistants and other products.

Obviously, Lingsi Technology's layout in AI chips has gradually opened up, and now with the leadership of iFlytek's veteran figures, iFlytek's determination in chip manufacturing is evident.

In this year's semi-annual report, iFLYTEK also mentioned that after being included in the "Entity List" in 2019, it quickly switched to domestic supply and increased its investment in AI basic technology research and development year by year.

Chen Tao: Building an AI ecosystem

Another director who resigned is Chen Tao .

In the past, while serving as a director and vice president of iFLYTEK, Chen Tao also served as executive director or chairman of several subsidiaries, including iFLYTEK Zhiyuan, Suzhou iFLYTEK Education, and Hefei iFLYTEK Education.

Since March 2019, Chen Tao has served as the director of iFLYTEK's Strategic Operations Committee and is no longer directly responsible for the management of the Smart City BG.

As of the date of disclosure of this announcement, Chen Tao held 12,999,035 shares of iFLYTEK.

Currently, Chen Tao works as the vice chairman of Anhui Yanzhi Technology Co., Ltd.

△ The second from the right is Chen Tao, the picture is from Hefei High-tech Press

It is reported that Yanzhi Technology was established in December 2019 and is controlled by the management team of iFLYTEK. It is jointly built by Anhui Province and Hefei Municipal Government Funds. Liu Qingfeng holds a 75.48% stake .

Yanzhi Technology focuses on incubating and cultivating companies with entrepreneurial projects in the field of artificial intelligence, and is committed to conducting AI ecological investment and global channel promotion on a global scale, and helping to build an artificial intelligence industry ecological cluster in Anhui Province.

In addition, we also noticed that Yanzhi Technology holds 63.71% of Lingsi Technology and 2.31% of iFlytek shares .

By-election of 2 senior executives

In the official disclosure, iFLYTEK emphasized that the resignation of the two directors from the company will not have an adverse impact on business development.

At the same time, iFLYTEK elected two candidates, Jiang Tao and Duan Dawei, as candidates for non-independent directors of the fifth board of directors.

Among them, Jiang Tao is a member of the iFLYTEK entrepreneurial team. He has been engaged in the application innovation of voice and artificial intelligence technology in the fields of communications and mobile Internet for a long time. He is currently the vice president and secretary of the board of directors of iFLYTEK.

Duan Dawei Currently serves as Vice President and CFO of iFLYTEK.

Reference links:
[1]https://pdf.dfcfw.com/pdf/H2_AN202109261518700239_1.pdf?1632675987000.pdf
[2]https://weibo.com/u/3232445822?profile_ftype=1&is_all=1#1632712421307