A GLOBALLY influential technology magazine, MIT Technology Review, recently released an annual listing of the top 50 smartest companies around the world. The Shenzhen-based telecom giant Tencent occupied the 8th position on the list.

To make it onto the list requires a company to possess core innovative technologies as well as practical and ambitious business modes. Nvidia, SpaceX and Amazon rounded out the list’s top three spots.

Overall, nine Chinese companies made it onto the list, namely iFlyTek (6th), Tencent (8th), Face++ (11th), DJI-Innovations (25th), Foxconn (33rd), Alibaba (41st), HTC (42nd), Ant Financial (49th) and Baidu (50th).

Among the BAT companies (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent), only Tencent obtained recognition for its innovative technologies. Noticeably, Baidu and Huawei, which occupied the second and 10th places on the list last year, didn’t even make it onto this year’s list.

Among the seven Chinese companies on the list, iFlyTek led the way. Since as early as November 2016, iFlyTek has published a number of artificial intelligence technologies based on “super-brain” technology, and published the first IOE input solution.

According to the Research Markets’ statistics, in the current global voice market, iFlyTek is listed just after Google, Microsoft and Apple. It was also ranked fourth in the world with 6.7 percent of the global market share. (Zhang Qian, Liu Yu)