Chinese Internet search giant Baidu and A*Star's Institute for Infocomm Research(I2R) yesterday opened a joint laboratory called the Baidu-I2R Research Centre.

The lab, which has about 20 researchers, aims to strengthen Baidu's foothold in South-east Asia, said acting executive director Tan Geok Leng of I2R. which specialises in speech and language recognition, among other things.

Baidu will adopt the institute's Vietnamese and Thai language technology as well as its speaker-verification technology, which recognises individual voices.

A*Star and Baidu signed a licensing agreement yesterday to adopt these technologies.

This article was first published in The New Paper.