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☆ Baidu’s robotaxi unit expects to turn profitable next year
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-15 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

A driverless robotaxi autonomous vehicle developed by Baidu Apollo driving along a street in Beijing. SHANGHAI — Chinese tech company Baidu said Wednesday its Apollo Go robotaxi arm expects to turn profitable next year. The projection comes as Elon Musk has emphasized his plans to build up Tesla's robotaxi efforts amid a decline in revenue. Baidu on Wednesday announced Apollo's 6th generation robotaxi will cost around 200,000 yuan ($28,169) — or less than half that of the prior generation, the company said. Others in the auto industry remain more skeptical about fully driverless cars, which require broad regulatory approval in order to operate.

Persons: Elon Musk, Apollo, Baidu, Brian Gu Organizations: Baidu, Wednesday, China Securities Regulatory Commission, Xpeng Locations: Beijing, SHANGHAI, Wuhan, China

☆ Qu Jing: Baidu’s PR chief sparks a PR nightmare for the Chinese tech giant
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-09 | by ( Nectar Gan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Hong Kong CNN —Chinese search engine giant Baidu has found itself in a public relations crisis, thanks to its own PR chief. Qu, Baidu's vice president and head of communications, has sparked backlash over her comments endorsing a tough workplace culture. China’s young workers have increasingly spoken out against the harsh workplace culture that has come to dominate many industries. Qu had asked all members of the PR team to create their personal accounts, according to the person, who requested anonymity. A former Baidu employee said Qu brought Huawei’s aggressive corporate culture with her to Baidu.

Persons: Qu Jing, Qu, I’m, ” Qu, “, ”, Jing, China’s, Ivy Yang, ” Yang, Alibaba, Jack Ma, Ma, Baidu, Cristina Organizations: Hong Kong CNN, Baidu, Xinhua, Huawei, CNN Locations: China, Hong Kong, Weibo

☆ Elon Musk wins official praise for Tesla during surprise visit to China
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-29 | by ( Laura He | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Autopilot is available in China, but not the full FSD feature, which needs to comply with the country’s data security rules. “The economies of China and the United States are deeply integrated,” he said, according to an official readout of the meeting with the Tesla CEO. “Tesla is willing to further deepen cooperation with China and achieve more win-win results,” Musk told Li. Musk first met Li in 2018, when Tesla signed a deal with the Shanghai government to open a plant there. Since then, Musk has met with Li publicly at least five times, according to state media reports and government statements.

Persons: Hong Kong CNN — Elon Musk, Premier Li Qiang, Tesla, Musk, ”, Dan Ives, that’s, Ives, Antony Blinken, Xi Jinping, Li, China’s BYD, “, ” Musk, Tesla’s, Ren Hongbin, Li Qiang Organizations: Hong Kong CNN, Premier, China Association of Auto Manufacturers, Baidu, Bloomberg, CNN, Beijing Auto, EV, Wedbush Securities, China Council, Promotion of International Trade Locations: China, Hong Kong, Beijing, United States, Shanghai, Weibo

HONG KONG (AP) — Technology company Baidu on Monday refuted a newspaper report that said its artificial intelligence chatbot Ernie was linked to Chinese military research. The paper stated that the division had tested its artificial intelligence system on Baidu’s Ernie and on artificial intelligence firm iFlyTek’s Spark, both of which are language-based AI chatbots similar to ChatGPT. “Ernie Bot is available to and used by the general public,” the Chinese company said in its statement. Like ChatGPT, users can pose questions or requests to Ernie Bot, which would then generate content based on the initial prompt. The Beijing-headquartered firm said in December that it had more than 100 million users for Ernie Bot.

Persons: Ernie, Baidu, Ernie Bot Organizations: — Technology, Baidu, Hong, China Morning, People’s Liberation Army cyberwarfare, PLA Information Engineering University, China Morning Post, PLA, Huawei, U.S Locations: HONG KONG, Hong Kong, U.S, China, Taiwan, Beijing

☆ Baidu’s live streaming plans suffer as it calls off $3.6 billion Joyy deal
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-01 | by ( Anna Cooban | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

London CNN —Baidu’s bid to expand its live streaming business in China and diversify its revenue has suffered a blow with the collapse of a planned $3.6 billion acquisition. The Chinese tech giant announced Monday that one of its affiliate companies had terminated a 2020 agreement with Nasdaq-listed Joyy (YY), the owner of popular live streaming platform YY Live. Baidu CEO Robin Li said at the time that the acquisition would “catapult Baidu into a leading platform for live streaming and diversify our revenue source.”Like other live streaming platforms in China, YY Live makes money from users who buy virtual gifts for performers. Live streaming revenues fell by nearly 9% to $495.8 million. But as China’s economic outlook deteriorates, Beijing has shown signs of easing the crackdown, frequently talking up tech companies’ role in the economy.

Persons: London CNN —, ” Joyy, “, Robin Li, Joyy Organizations: London CNN, Nasdaq, Baidu, Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Big Tech Locations: China, , Beijing

☆ Exclusive: Baidu placed AI chip order from Huawei in shift away from Nvidia -sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Baidu ordered 1,600 of Huawei Technologies' 910B Ascend AI chips - which the Chinese firm developed as an alternative to Nvidia's A100 chip - for 200 servers, the source said, adding that by October, Huawei had delivered more 60% of the order, or about 1,000 chips, to Baidu. Baidu, alongside Chinese peers such as Tencent (0700.HK) and Alibaba (9988.HK), is known to be a long-time client of Nvidia. Baidu was not previously known to be a AI chip customer of Huawei. Huawei's website says it has since 2020 collaborated with Baidu to make its AI platform compatible with Huawei hardware. Baidu has developed its own line of Kunlun AI chips, which the company says supports large-scale AI computing, but the company has mainly relied on Nvidia's A100 chip to train its LLM.

Persons: Aly, Baidu, Ernie, Yelin Mo, Zhang Yan, Brenda Goh, Josh Ye, Gerry Doyle Organizations: Baidu, Artificial Intelligence, REUTERS, Rights, HK, Huawei, U.S ., Nvidia, Huawei Technologies, U.S, HUAWEI, Reuters, Thomson Locations: Shanghai, China, Rights BEIJING, SHANGHAI, U.S, Beijing, Hong Kong

☆ Baidu says its AI is in the same league as GPT-4
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-17 | by ( Michelle Toh | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Hong Kong CNN —Chinese tech giant Baidu is officially taking on GPT-4. The new ERNIE Bot “is not inferior in any aspect to GPT-4,” Baidu’s billionaire CEO, Robin Li, told an audience at its annual flagship event. Baidu CEO Robin Li announcing an upgrade of ERNIE Bot, its generative AI chatbot. Baidu (BIDU) has been a frontrunner in China in the race to capitalize on the excitement around generative AI, the technology that underpins systems such as ChatGPT or its successor, GPT-4. The Chinese company also announced Tuesday it had updated its suite of services to integrate the latest upgrades from ERNIE.

Persons: ERNIE, ERNIE Bot “, ”, Robin Li, Li, ERNIE Bot, “, Charlie Dai, Forrester, Baidu, I’m, Goldman Sachs, Dai, JD Cloud Organizations: Hong Kong CNN, Baidu, CNN, Huawei, JD Locations: China, Hong Kong, Beijing, United States

A digital artwork by Chinese artist Snow Fish. The controversy has fueled online protests on the Chinese internet against the creation and use of AI-generated images, with several other artists claiming their works had been similarly used without their knowledge. Hundreds of artists have posted banners on Xiaohongshu saying “No to AI-generated images,” while a related hashtag has been viewed more than 35 million times on the Chinese Twitter-like platform Weibo. Besides Trik AI, Xiaohongshu has also developed a new function called “Ci Ke” which allows users to post content using AI-generated images. Snow Fish added that these complaints had been slowly growing within the artist community but had mostly been privately shared rather than openly protested.

Persons: Snow Fish, Fish, Bard, ERNIE Bot, SenseTime’s, Xiaohongshu, Snow, “, ”, Zhang, ’ Organizations: Hong Kong CNN — Artists, CNN, Xiaohongshu, City University of Hong, European, Capitol Hill Locations: China, Hong Kong, Weibo, United States, City University of Hong Kong, London, California

“In the age of AI, where data is the new oil, China is the new Saudi Arabia”, venture capitalist Lee Kai-fu declared in 2018. Washington may soon tighten export restrictions to China by targeting AI semiconductors, according to the Wall Street Journal. A slowing economy and brutal price war in the fiercely competitive cloud market will only make monetising AI products harder. China’s AI moment has arrived, only with far less promise than initially hoped. China wants to become a world leader in AI by 2030, according to a 2017 roadmap released by the State Council.

Persons: Lee Kai, OpenAI's, Xi Jinping, Goldman Sachs, Robin Li, Baidu’s, Bernstein, SenseTime, Xi, Una Galani, Thomas Shum Organizations: Reuters, Saudi Arabia ”, OpenAI's ChatGPT, European Union, Baidu, HK, Nasdaq, Washington, Wall Street, Nvidia, AMD, Microsoft, CloudWalk Technology, Cyberspace Administration, China, State, Thomson Locations: HONG KONG, China, Republic, Saudi Arabia, United States, Beijing, York, Shanghai

When asked to recount the events of June 4, 1989, the chatbot rebooted itself. On Taiwan, Ernie did not pull any punches:The People’s Liberation Army is ready for battle, will take all necessary measures and is determined to thwart external interference and “Taiwan independence” separatist attempts. According to historical records, Louis XV often uttered this phrase when he ruled France at the end of the 18th century. OpenAI released a plug-in this year that enabled its chatbot to surf the web through Microsoft’s Bing. researchers have used to gauge a chatbot’s human-level intuitions:“Here we have a book, nine eggs, a laptop, a bottle and a nail.

Persons: Ernie, chatbot, Vladimir V, Putin, “, ChatGPT, crackdowns, ”, Louis XV, Jean, Jacques Rousseau, Marie Antoinette, Linda Yaccarino, Jack Dorsey, OpenAI, Microsoft’s Bing Organizations: People’s, Army, Baidu, Twitter Locations: United States, Taiwan, Ukraine, Russian, Russia, France, French

Baidu CEO Robin Li speaks at the company’s Ernie Bot launch in Beijing on Thursday. BEIJING—At an intimate event space in Baidu Inc.’s Beijing headquarters on Thursday, the Chinese search giant’s Chief Executive Robin Li sought to wow an in-person and online audience by introducing its AI-powered chatbot, Ernie Bot. Over half an hour, Mr. Li showed a series of prerecorded videos of the chatbot—the first real Chinese contender to ChatGPT, developed by San Francisco-based firm OpenAI—answering questions about Chinese literature, solving math problems and generating images and videos.

☆ Baidu stock rebounds after falling sharply in wake of demo of ERNIE chatbot, its ChatGPT-style service
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Michelle Toh | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Hong Kong CNN —Shares in Chinese search giant Baidu rebounded sharply a day after it unveiled ERNIE Bot, its answer to the ChatGPT craze. Its Hong Kong shares fell 6.4% after a public demonstration of its bot failed to impress investors. The reversal came after the company said more than 30,000 businesses had signed up to test out its chatbot service within two hours of its demonstration. Baidu Chairman and CEO Robin Li presenting the company's AI chatbot, ERNIE Bot, in Beijing on March 16. But its stock slumped on Thursday because the demo was “pre-recorded, and not live, which makes investors skeptical about the robustness of the ERNIE Bot,” according to Pau.

☆ Open-source software braces for trade war
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Pete Sweeney | Thomson Reuters | Asia Economics Editor Pete Sweeney Joined Reuters Breakingviews In Hong Kong In September Previously He Served As Reuters' Chief Correspondent For China Economy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

HONG KONG, Feb 27 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The open-source software movement has been an unprecedented driver of global innovation and productivity growth. As with most Chinese handset makers, founder Ren Zhengfei relied on Android’s open-source code to run his company’s smartphones. Beijing has reciprocated, per a Nikkei report, by instructing its own tech companies not to incorporate ChatGPT into their platforms - a rare example of a mutual firewall. Dividing the world into competing open-source camps would mark another reverse for free trade. Follow @petesweeneypro on TwitterCONTEXT NEWSRegulators have told major Chinese tech companies not to offer ChatGPT services, the Nikkei news service reported on Feb. 22 citing sources with direct knowledge, causing shares in Chinese companies building chatbots to fall.

☆ Baidu’s ChatGPT-Style Bot Will Be No Magic Bullet
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Jacky Wong | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

ChatGPT—and its feistier relative, the new Bing—have been lighting up computer screens recently. China’s search giant Baidu hopes its own artificial intelligence-powered chatbot will put the company back on the path to growth. Investors seem to agree: Baidu stock is up 26% so far in 2023, outperforming the Hang Seng Tech index. But it might not be so straightforward: It isn’t still clear how much chatbots will actually enhance existing services such as search, or how costly the rollout will be. Meanwhile, Baidu’s core revenue source—advertising dollars—risks returning to slow growth once the initial bounce from China’s reopening fades.

☆ Alibaba is launching an AI bot to rival ChatGPT, sending its shares up
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Michelle Toh | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Hong Kong CNN —Alibaba says it will launch its own ChatGPT-style tool, becoming the latest tech giant to jump on the chatbot bandwagon. It did not share details of when it would launch or what the application would be called. This week, Google (GOOGL) and Chinese search engine giant Baidu (BIDU) both unveiled plans to launch similar services of their own. Bard suffered an embarrassing setback this week, however, after producing an incorrect response during a public demonstration. The company is also investing billions of dollars in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

☆ Baidu, the Chinese search engine giant, announces ChatGPT-style AI bot
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Michelle Toh | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Hong Kong CNN —Chinese search engine giant Baidu says it will be launching its own ChatGPT-style service. It will launch a new artificial intelligence chatbot called “Wenxin Yiyan” in Chinese, or “Ernie Bot” in English, a spokesperson told CNN on Tuesday. Baidu (BIDU) is currently testing the project internally and will likely roll out the service to users in March, the person said. The company did not provide further details, such as how the tool would look or whether it would appear as a feature within its popular search engine. Baidu’s AI investments can be seen as “both an offensive and defensive strategic move in China,” Daniel Ives, managing director of Wedbush Securities, told CNN.

☆ China’s Baidu Sees Little Impact From U.S. Chip Controls
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Shen Lu | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Beijing-based Baidu has stockpiled enough high-end chips for its businesses that need them, a company executive said. An executive of Baidu Inc., the Chinese search-engine giant and major artificial-intelligence company, shrugged off new U.S. export restrictions on advanced semiconductors designed to slow China’s military advance. Baidu’s Executive Vice President Dou Shen said in an earnings call with analysts on Tuesday the U.S. export controls would have limited short-term impact on the company, and he believes its AI businesses would benefit from the new rules in the long run.

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