Ru Yi, founder of Lawaken
AsianFin -- As China’s AI hardware race accelerates, a new contender is gaining attention for its focus on a device often seen as futuristic: the smart glasses.
Beijing-based Lawaken, founded by seasoned hardware entrepreneur Ru Yi, is doubling down on what it calls the “natural entry point” to the AI era — and it’s not smartphones or earbuds, but glasses designed for always-on translation, interaction, and real-time content creation.
Last night, Lei Jun — founder of Xiaomi — finally unveiled the company’s long-hyped AI glasses, calling them a “portable AI interface.” The announcement catapulted AI glasses to the top of trending topics across Chinese social media.
But Lawaken, which quietly debuted its first integrated AR glasses in 2022, is already on its third generation of smart eyewear — and believes the next leap will be driven not by entertainment or augmented reality, but by business travel, overseas trade, and real-time translation.
Ru Yi, founder and CEO of Lawaken, is no newcomer to Chinese hardware revolutions. He helped develop China’s first smartphone to sell over one million units (the Ming), built China’s first custom Android OS (OPhone), led Xiaomi’s TV box team from scratch, and was known as the “father of Tmall Genie” for spearheading Alibaba’s AI voice assistant X1.
But by 2021, Ru had set his sights on something different — the next post-smartphone interface.
“Every technological era has its own gateway,” Ru told Bloomberg-style tech media Fat Whale in a recent interview. “For the AI era, that gateway is glasses.”
Lawaken glasses (provided by the interviewee)
Lawaken — a phonetic riff on “let AI awaken” — launched with backing from ByteDance just three months after its founding. It initially focused on voice-controlled outdoor glasses. But when OpenAI’s ChatGPT was released in late 2022, Lawaken’s hardware was instantly outdated. “Suddenly, smart glasses that only did voice commands became obsolete,” Ru said.
By early 2023, the company’s leadership huddled in a mountain village outside Hangzhou and made a pivot: to build real AI glasses that integrate language models, cameras, and speech capabilities. The team spent over a year overhauling its software architecture to support large language models — shifting from BERT-based NLP to full-scale LLM integration.
In 2024, Lawaken launched “Chat,” its first AI-powered glasses based on its proprietary WAKE-AI model. But instead of going mass-market, Lawaken is targeting Chinese businesspeople going abroad.
“AI today is about focusing deeply on one vertical and becoming the best,” Ru said. That vertical, for Lawaken, is outbound trade: providing real-time multilingual translation, cultural context, and AI-assisted negotiation for Chinese companies participating in Belt and Road markets.
Lawaken recently secured tens of millions of RMB in strategic funding from Hefei Baohe Venture Capital and Mioriente, a publicly listed overseas exhibition company with deep networks in BRI regions.
Lawaken’s new “City Air” model, launched in 2025, features live audio translation, real-time subtitling, hands-free video capture, and navigation support — all in a sleek, lightweight frame designed to be worn all day. It integrates with a “cloud agent” that continuously learns from user habits.
While tech giants like Microsoft and Google may one day enter the smart glasses race, Ru believes Lawaken’s edge is in its tight coupling of product with use case. “We’re not just building a translation device — we’re enabling global commerce,” he said.
In Lawaken’s view, the ultimate test is not how many units it ships, but how deeply it integrates into the workflow of a business traveler.
“Every year, 10 million Chinese entrepreneurs go abroad. If our glasses help even a fraction of them close deals faster, avoid misunderstandings, or navigate foreign markets better — then that’s value.”
The company is already piloting its glasses at overseas exhibitions through its partner Mioriente. Lawaken’s “to-consumer” sales approach, however, is calibrated for a niche but highly active segment — cross-border businesspeople, international students, and professional interpreters.
Ru sees parallels between today’s AI race and the rise of smartphones a decade ago. “Back then, whoever mastered Android won. Today, it’s whoever can best apply open-source LLMs like DeepSeek or Qwen in hardware form factors.”
He also believes China is well-positioned for a new era of globalized electronics brands. “The past decade was about OEM and manufacturing. The next decade is about brand and experience,” he said. “Chinese hardware already dominates the world. Now Chinese innovation is catching up.”
While giants like Xiaomi entering the space may raise competitive pressure, Ru welcomes the momentum. “This is a 1.3 billion-user market, just like phones. I’m more worried about apathy than competition.”
For Ru, entrepreneurship is not about chasing hype — but finding the “right scene, right product, and right rhythm.”
“Whether it was smartphones, smart TVs, smart speakers — the pattern is always the same. The ones who win are those who understand the user first.”
With Lawaken’s firm bet on smart glasses as the AI era’s next interface — and a clear path from concept to commerce — Ru is hoping to repeat that playbook, one pair of glasses at a time.
