Edge computing startup Jiangxing AI secured eight figures in yuan in a Series A++ financing round led by Zhongguancun Innovation Fund, Future Capital, and Zhuoyuan Capital. Existing shareholders in the company include Sequoia Capital, Baidu Ventures, and Lenovo Ventures.
Jiangxing AI, which focuses on edge computing and AI applications in the industrial energy sector, was founded in 2018 by Liu Jiangchuan, a fellow at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Canadian Academy of Engineering. The fresh funds will go towards developing new products, edge computing cloud collaboration, enhancing algorithm capabilities, and creating a sales strategy.
Edge computing allows companies to house data on location instead of in data centers that may be far away, improving response times and saving bandwidth. Jiangxing AI’s technology is particularly beneficial when applied to critical infrastructure like power and charging grids, and in energy production including solar, wind, hydroelectric, and geothermal sources. The company combines edge computing with cloud technologies to enhance the functionalities of internet of things devices. Jiangxing AI serves a variety of industrial clients in areas like manufacturing, oil and gas, hydropower, transportation, mining, renewable energy, and urban management.
The startup’s solutions provide data processing and real-time analysis to lower maintenance costs for clients. In one hydropower plant in Sichuan Province, Jiangxing AI’s product reduced maintenance expenses by 60%, amounting to tens of millions of yuan in savings per year.
China’s current annual investment in its energy market is around RMB 100 billion (USD 15.45 billion), and has maintained steady growth, according to Jiangxing AI. After Chinese central authorities indicated in their 14th Five-Year Plan in 2018 that it is a key goal to accelerate the digital transformation of infrastructure systems, Jiangxing AI’s number of customers more than tripled to 60 by 2020.
“As an important cornerstone of the fourth industrial revolution, the industrial internet is driving the rapid development of big data and cloud computing, enabling a revolutionary breakthrough in information transmission in edge computing. Edge computing will become vital to the integration and development of 5G, industrial internet, and artificial intelligence,” Liu said, affirming his company’s vision to apply edge computing in more industrial scenarios and extend applications into new sectors.
Jiangxing AI’s business, which improves the efficiency of its partners in the energy industry, aligns with China’s national strategy to curb emissions and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, according to the company’s CEO, Pang Haitian.
With nearly 100 employees, almost 70 of which work in research and development, Jiangxing AI has R&D centers in Beijing, Shenzhen, and Nanjing. Its management team’s members boast a rich scientific and engineering background, having previously worked at firms including Tencent, Microsoft, and SAP.
KrASIA Connection features translated and adapted content published by 36Kr. This article was originally written by the mononymous Ben for 36Kr.