Xiaomi is betting on artificial intelligence to future-proof its sprawling hardware empire, pouring massive resources into open-source models to ensure its next generation of smartphones and electric vehicles (EVs) does not get left behind in an AI-driven market.

The Beijing-based firm’s latest AI model, MiMo-V2.5-Pro, introduced last month, was ranked by third-party benchmark platform Artificial Analysis as the world’s top open-source model for agentic capabilities – referring to an AI system’s ability to autonomously carry out complex, multistep tasks.

Topping the benchmark signals early progress for a company that only started releasing open-source AI systems a year ago. It also comes as Xiaomi recently committed more than 60 billion yuan (US$8.8 billion) to AI investments over the next three years, underscoring its ambition to develop frontier AI models.

Analysts said Xiaomi’s big bet on AI was crucial to helping the company capture new opportunities as the emerging technology became increasingly embedded across hardware and devices.

“AI is the most critical factor for all tech consumer goods companies,” said Hayden Hou, principal analyst at research firm Canalys.

On the Artificial Analysis benchmark, Xiaomi’s MiMo-V2.5-Pro came in second and third in overall intelligence and coding tests, trailing only DeepSeek and Moonshot AI – two of the leading AI labs in China – among open-source systems.