BEIJING, Sept. 18-- U.S. chip giant Intel has decided to invest around 67 million U.S. dollars in eight Chinese tech companies.

The eight firms are mainly involved in the cutting-edge fields of smart devices, robots, the Internet of things, cloud services, big data and data analysis, according to a report on Friday by Economic Information Daily.

Since it started to invest in the Chinese market in 1998, Intel has pumped more than 1.9 billion U.S. dollars into around 140 firms, 35 of which have either gone public or been acquired.

The U.S. chipmaker has invested in areas including smart devices, robots, unmanned aerial vehicles and data analysis in China.

The decision comes ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping setting out visit to the United States next week.