Local startup speeds up global expansion

Local startup Camscanner, which offers mobile scanning services with AI technologies, has added new features including support for over 60 languages and an improved security policy. 

The company, which has more than 370 million users in over 200 regions and countries, hopes to speed global expansion through the update, including in Belt and Road regions.

About 20 languages are new, including Greek, Polish, Farsi and Sanskrit, the company said. Last year, the company's app was named best in the Belt and Road region by researcher App Annie.

Updated functions include taking pictures of a document and instantly converting it to a spreadsheet; easy clicking and scanning a book; a new PPT (PowerPoint) shooting mode and auto splitting for left and right pages.

The AI technology behind the features is optical character recognition (OCR), which allows users to convert images to text files and share and manage them online, with support in  multiple languages.

Shanghai is home to more than 1,000 AI firms including Camscanner. The city generates a huge volume of data each providing huge potential for AI firms.

The local AI industry generated 70 billion yuan (US$10.4 billion) in 2017. Core sectors are expected to produce more than 100 billion yuan by 2020, Shanghai government officials said.

Camscanner also announced several new additions to its safety and security layers to ensure that users have full control over their documents, and updated its policy with better data protection.

Meanwhile, Camscanner will offer new features and 10 GB cloud space for paid VIP users.