Home appliance makers sharpen edge with AI.

As the ever-increasing power of artificial intelligence spearheads a new wave of technological innovation and industrial revolution, Chinese home appliance manufacturers are accelerating the use of the cutting-edge technology and integrating AI startup DeepSeek's large language models into products and services.
Experts say that AI is not only playing an increasingly pivotal role in boosting productivity and reshaping the competition landscape in the household appliance sector, but is also driving the transformation and upgrading of traditional manufacturing.
This year's Government Work Report stated that under the AI Plus initiative, the nation will work to effectively combine digital technologies with its manufacturing and market strengths, support the extensive application of large-scale AI models, and vigorously develop new-generation intelligent terminals and smart manufacturing equipment.
Sichuan Changhong Electronics Holding Group Co Ltd has adopted DeepSeek's AI models and applied the AI technology into areas such as manufacturing, operations and products. "We are pushing forward the integration of AI with data and speeding up the industrial use of AI," said Liu Jiang, chairman of Changhong.
Changhong has also unveiled plans to establish 66 AI-powered intelligent factories worldwide, and has rolled out AI televisions equipped with LLMs that support multimodal interaction functions including voice, gesture and expressions.
Gree Electric Appliances has embedded its own proprietary model frameworks into DeepSeek R1 and plans to build an industry-specific AI model based on DeepSeek. Dong Mingzhu, chairwoman of Gree, said the company will bolster the deeper integration of image and voice recognition and other AI technologies with home appliance products, and expects the application of AI in air conditioners to contribute to energy conservation.
According to research firm iResearch, the market size of China's smart home industry is expected to rise to 952.3 billion yuan ($131.65 billion) in 2025, while the overall penetration rate of AI technology in smart home devices is expected to exceed 50 percent between 2022 and the end of 2025.