China-headquartered smartphone maker Xiaomi inked a deal with internet giant Baidu “to take our AI investments in IoT to the next level”, with a focus on the smart home space.

In a Facebook post, Xiaomi SVP Xiang Wang said the company has “the world’s largest smart hardware platform with over 85 million connected smart devices”. It also offers a smart speaker called Mi AI Speaker.

It did not provide much detail on its Baidu partnership, other than to state it believes it can “provide users with a more compelling experience, as well as create infinite possibilities for the industry”. According to reports, the focus will include areas such as deep learning, voice recognition, conversational AI and computer vision.

The deal will give Baidu access to Xiaomi’s extensive hardware ecosystem, while enabling Xiaomi to tap Baidu’s online expertise.

TechCrunch said Baidu’s conversational AI platform, DuerOS, is already supported by some Xiaomi hardware, although the relationship had not been made public.