(Yicai) Sept. 14 -- Ugreen Group, best known for power banks, data cables, and docking stations, is moving beyond its traditional business toward smart storage and home artificial intelligence solutions, unveiling new AI network attached storage devices developed in collaboration with Qwen, an AI model family developed by Alibaba Cloud.

NAS devices, which connect to a home or corporate local area networks, have traditionally been used mainly to store files. Ugreen is now adding local AI inference capabilities through an alliance with Qwen, seeking to turn its NAS products into personal computing hubs that can understand and process users’ data, the Shenzhen-based company announced on Sept. 12. For more complex reasoning tasks, users can switch to cloud-based AI models, it said.

Ugreen had revenue of about CNY5.8 billion (USD864.8 million) in the six months ended June 30, with income from its intelligent storage business surging 86 percent from a year earlier to CNY770 million, according to its financial report released last month. Smart storage posted the fastest growth among the company’s business segments.

Ugreen plans to extend its local AI capabilities beyond NAS devices and into the broader smart-home ecosystem, founder and Chief Executive Zhang Qingsen said. The company aims to build an AI of Things hub that serves as a central source of storage and computing power, while sharing computing resources and AI capabilities with devices such as robot vacuum cleaners and 3D printers through connectivity protocols, Zhang said.

Under this arrangement, individual household appliances would no longer need to be equipped with their own AI capabilities and computing resources. Instead, a central hub could allocate computing power on demand across devices, increasing the utilization of AI capabilities while reducing the cost of equipping each appliance with dedicated hardware, Zhang pointed out.

Ugreen’s shares [SHE: 301606] ended 2.9 percent lower at CNY51.90 (USD7.73) each in Shenzhen today amid a broader decline in technology stocks.

The global AI NAS market stood at about USD9.9 million last year and is expected to top USD155 million in 2032, growing at a compound annual rate of 49 percent, according to data from QYResearch. Global sales will likely surge to 6.69 million units in 2035 from 60,000 in 2024, with a penetration rate of more than 60 percent, according to research by China Securities.

Still, it remains to be seen whether AI NAS devices can move beyond being a niche product for enthusiasts and gain broader adoption among households. Their prospects will ultimately depend on whether consumers see enough value in local AI capabilities to pay for them in everyday applications.

Editor: Martin Kadiev