The world's first AI smartphone will be released next week

Zhidongxi Author | Cheng Qian Editor | Xinyuan Zhidongzhi reported on July 9 that Zhidongxi learned that Shanghai’s large-scale model unicorn Step Star will soon release an AI terminal brand, AI intelligent body system and the world’s first AI intelligent mobile phone. ▲Leap Star New Generation Smart Terminal Poster (Source: Step Star) Ni Fei, Senior Vice President of ZTE Corporation, General Manager of ZTE Terminal Division, and President of Nubia, posted on Weibo yesterday afternoon that the world’s first AI smart phone comes from Nubia. This mass-produced flagship will make its public debut at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference next week. In December last year, ByteDance’s AI assistant Doubao teamed up with ZTE to launch a limited edition Doubao AI phone. Step Star was founded in 2023 by former Microsoft Global Vice President Jiang Daxin. It has released the Step series of general large model matrices, covering comprehensive capabilities from language, multimodality to reasoning, and has continuously open sourced multiple industry-leading multimodal large models to developers. In January this year, Step Star announced that Yin Qi, co-founder of Megvii Technology and chairman of Qianli Technology, would officially serve as chairman, responsible for formulating the overall strategic rhythm and technical direction. He will form the core management team with CEO Jiang Daxin, chief scientist Zhang Xiangyu, and CTO Zhu Yibo. ▲Step Star CEO Jiang Daxin (left), Step Star Chairman Yin Qi (right) (Source: Step Star) According to Qiuchacha information, Step Star has completed 5 rounds of financing. The latest round was approximately US$2.5 billion (approximately RMB 17 billion) in May this year. Previous investors include Tencent, Lenovo Ventures, Shunwei Capital, etc. ▲ Financing situation of Step Star (Source: Qichacha) In addition, in February this year, foreign media Bloomberg quoted people familiar with the matter as reporting that Step Star was considering an IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and planned to raise approximately US$500 million (approximately RMB 3.4 billion). Step Star has negotiated with potential consultants on equity sales and may be listed as early as this year. Details such as its issuance scale and listing time may change. In June this year, Step Star’s latest open source MoE model