Alibaba deepens push into AI smart glasses with Hong Kong’s RayNeo

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.

Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

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.