Alibaba Group Holding is pushing further into the expanding market for artificial intelligence (AI) hardware through a new partnership with Hong Kong-based augmented reality (AR) glasses maker RayNeo.
Under the deal, the cloud computing and AI unit of Alibaba will provide exclusive technology support for RayNeo's products through its Qwen large language models (LLMs), the companies said on Thursday. LLMs are the technology underpinning generative AI services such as OpenAI's ChatGPT.
"This partnership represents a new application of the Qwen LLM in the field of smart glasses," said Zhou Jingren, chief technology officer at Alibaba Cloud. It also marks the first in-depth collaboration between an LLM developer and an AI glasses manufacturer in China, according to Alibaba Cloud.
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Smart glasses, which are lighter and slimmer than AR and virtual reality headsets, have seen a surge in fresh interest stemming from new capabilities introduced by generative AI.
Rokid, an AR glasses brand founded by former Alibaba employee Misa Zhu Mingming and based in California, announced in November its first AR glasses equipped with LLMs, powered by Alibaba's Qwen.
Baidu in the same month launched the Xiaodu AI glasses supported by its Ernie LLM, while Xiaomi-backed start-up Superhexa introduced its AI audio glasses Jiehuan in August.
Facebook owner Meta Platforms in September unveiled Orion, which it called one of the most advanced pairs of AR glasses ever made. The company previously introduced a series of smart glasses with Ray-Ban.
Alibaba Cloud said AR glasses are an ideal platform for applying LLMs. As part of its latest partnership, the company said it would develop customised models to enable deeper integration between AI and hardware.
Alibaba is pushing deeper into AI as part of its business strategy. Photo: EPA-EFE alt=Alibaba is pushing deeper into AI as part of its business strategy. Photo: EPA-EFE>
While AI glasses remain at an early stage of development, the market has the potential to rival that of smartphones in the long term, according to analysts at Hong Kong-based Shenwan Hongyuan Securities. Extended-reality research firm WellsennXR predicts that by 2029, the annual sales of AI glasses could reach 55 million units.
The global smart-glasses market was estimated at US$1.93 billion in 2024, according to consultancy Grand View Research. It is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 27.3 per cent from 2025 to reach US$8.26 billion in 2030.
Established in 2021, RayNeo is a subsidiary of TCL Electronics Holdings, a major player in the global consumer electronics industry known for its televisions. The company said it had sold over 5,000 pairs of its recently launched RayNeo Air3 AR glasses.
RayNeo founder and CEO Li Hongwei said the company would unveil its V3 AI camera glasses and X3 Pro AR glasses at CES 2025 - one of the world's largest annual technology shows, which officially kicks off in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
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