DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Analysis: China's slow AI roll-out points to its tech sector's new regulatory reality
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-12 | by ( Josh Ye | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

[1/3] An AI (Artificial Intelligence) sign is seen at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China July 6, 2023. New rules Chinese firms have to comply with range from algorithm vetting to accepting security reviews of data they want to export. They definitely stifle the innovation and slow down the ability of Chinese firms to catch up." A key motivation behind China's reluctance to release AI chatbots is that Beijing fears uncensored chatbots may start influencing societal views in potentially subversive directions, said Mark Natkin, managing director of research firm Marbridge Consulting. "While the U.S. is racing ahead with AI, China is hitting the brakes with more rules."

Persons: Aly, HONG KONG, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Henry Gao, Ernie Bot, Robin Li, Shi, Mark Natkin, Heatherm Huang, Bard, Microsoft's Bing, Xi Jinping, Baidu, Josh Ye, Brenda Goh, Jamie Freed Organizations: Artificial Intelligence, REUTERS, China, Baidu, HK, Ant Group, Western, Singapore Management University, Microsoft, SenseChat, Nomura, Marbridge Consulting, Huawei Technologies, Thomson Locations: Shanghai, China, HONG, Beijing, Alibaba, Tencent, Hong Kong, U.S

☆ Baidu will 'very soon' officially launch generative AI model, says CEO
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

BEIJING, May 26 (Reuters) - Chinese search engine giant Baidu's (9888.HK) CEO Robin Li said on Friday that the company will "very soon" officially launch Ernie 3.5, a generative AI large-language model that will power Baidu's ChatGPT-like app Ernie Bot and upgrade its search engine. Li made the announcement at the Zhongguancun Forum, one of China's most well-known techology forums, around two months after Ernie Bot was first shown to the public to mixed reviews. Since then, Ernie Bot and other products powered by the company's generative AI large-language model have remained in trial mode, with a select number of companies and users invited to test the products and provide feedback. Reporting by Eduardo Baptista; Editing by Muralikumar AnantharamanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ China's internet giants bet big on A.I. as Beijing looks to rival U.S. on tech 'paradigm shift'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-23 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

"This kind of computing power needs to be provided as a kind of public service or infrastructure. China, specifically, "has some of the most advanced AI tech in the world," he added. "We believe this is a Game of Thrones also playing out in the China Tech market as the gloves are on for this battle," Ives said. Many innovative vendors are going after this market and China tech is now in the midst of a secular shift around AI." The comments from some of China's top tech companies last week hint at how Beijing is seeking to ramp up its rivalry with the U.S. on AI.

Persons: BABA BABA, Robin Li, Baidu, Ernie Bot, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Tencent, Martin Lau, Lau, Alibaba, Daniel Zhang, Dan Ives, Ives, Hao Hong, CNBC's, —, Tencent's Lau, Baidu's Li, Didi, Meituan Organizations: HK, Microsoft, Google, Wedbush Securities, CNBC, China Tech, Big Tech, Baidu, U.S, Nvidia, chipmaker Micron, Grow Investment Locations: China, Beijing, U.S, Alibaba

☆ China's Baidu beats earnings estimates as chatbot awaits government approval
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Search engine giant Baidu beat first-quarter revenue and profit estimates on Tuesday as businesses spent more on advertising amid China's post-Covid reopening, and said it was awaiting regulatory approval to launch its ChatGPT-like Ernie bot. Business momentum in China is building after it dropped most of its strict Covid-19 curbs late last year, with consumers and companies reviving spending. China's economy grew a faster-than-expected 4.5% year-on-year in the three months through March, according to the latest official data. Baidu CEO Robin Li said on Tuesday that after the Lunar New Year in late January, there was a quick economic recovery that especially benefited the company's advertisers in offline sectors such as travel and healthcare. "Some of these verticals have already rebounded to above pre-pandemic levels, indicating solid signs of recovery," Li said.

Baidu's revenue rose 10% to 31.14 billion yuan ($4.54 billion) in the quarter to March 31, surpassing analysts' estimates of 29.97 billion yuan, according to Refinitiv data. Revenue from Baidu Core, which includes search-based ad sales, cloud offerings and its autonomous driving initiatives, grew 8% to 23 billion yuan. Baidu reported net income of 5.83 billion yuan, compared to net loss in the year-ago quarter. The company's much-touted rival to ChatGPT, Ernie bot, has yet to be officially launched, despite having been partially unveiled to the public in mid-March. "During our testing of Ernie bot, we have engaged in close discussions with the regulators," Li said.

BEIJING, May 16 (Reuters) - Baidu Inc's (9888.HK) experience in tailoring its search engine to Chinese regulatory requirements makes it confident its AI-driven chatbot won't make mistakes on "important and sensitive topics", the company said on Tuesday. "For important and sensitive topics, we have to make sure artificial intelligence will not hallucinate," Li said, using the industry term for when AI models generate outputs different from what is expected. Li said industry regulation was not final yet, and the company would continue to update its strategy as it evolves. "Baidu has been operating search in China for more than 20 years and has extensive experience with Chinese culture and the regulatory environment," he said. Reporting by Eduardo Baptista in Beijing, Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru Editing by Mark PotterOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Baidu sues Apple, app developers over fake Ernie bot apps
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

REUTERS/Tingshu WangSHANGHAI, April 8 (Reuters) - Chinese search engine giant Baidu (9888.HK), has filed lawsuits against "relevant" app developers and Apple Inc (AAPL.O) over fake copies of its Ernie bot app available on Apple's app store. Baidu said it had lodged lawsuits in Beijing Haidian People's Court against the developers behind the counterfeit applications of its Ernie bot and the Apple company. "At present, Ernie does not have any official app," Baidu said in a statement late on Friday posted on its official "Baidu AI" WeChat account. "Until our company's official announcement, any Ernie app you see from App Store or other stores are fake," it said. The Ernie bot is only available to users who apply for and receive access codes.

☆ China's Baidu reveals more capabilities of AI-powered chatbot Ernie
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Eduardo Baptista | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BEIJING, March 27 (Reuters) - Chinese search engine Baidu (9888.HK) on Monday shared pre-recorded videos of its AI-powered chatbot Ernie summarising financial statements and producing powerpoint presentations, among other industry-focused capabilities. According to images shared by a Baidu spokesperson in a media-facing group on WeChat, China's most widely used messaging service, the Chinese chatbot has a wider range of skills than previously displayed when it was launched almost two weeks ago. Back then the ChatGPT-like product was shown to be competent at generating images with text prompts, composing poetry and producing audio in Chinese dialects. The videos shared on Monday show the chatbot, powered by generative artificial intelligence (AI), producing travel itineraries and virtual, human-like livestreamers that can advertise products using scripts tailored to the user's needs. These videos were from a closed-door meeting hosted by Baidu's AI Cloud division for the first batch of companies that are testing an industry-focused version of the chatbot.

☆ Baidu's Ernie writes poems but says it has insufficient information on Xi, tests show
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Eduardo Baptista | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

REUTERS/Tingshu WangBEIJING, March 20 (Reuters) - Baidu's (9888.HK) Ernie bot can within seconds generate pictures of flowers and write Tang dynasty-style poems but will decline questions about Chinese President Xi Jinping by saying it has not yet learnt how to answer them, Reuters tests showed. Some analysts and users soon began posting positive reviews of their experiences with Ernie bot, and side-by-side comparisons with ChatGPT, that drove Baidu's share price higher. Tests by Reuters of ChatGPT indicated that the Microsoft-backed chatbot is not averse to answering such questions. "Let's change the subject and start again," read a prompt Reuters received over a dozen times in response to sensitive questions. The Ernie bot would also produce the same restart prompts when asked similar questions about U.S. President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump.

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.

The company's Ernie bot is based off its AI-driven deep learning model, Ernie - short for "Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration". During the presentation at Baidu's Beijing headquarters that was also livestreamed over nine platforms, Li cautioned it was not perfect. "After the release of ChatGPT, only Baidu has made a benchmark product among the major tech companies in the world," it said. "We continue to advise investors to patiently hold BIDU shares as the best 'national champion' play in China’s (semi-segregated) AI space," he said. "Ernie Bot is not a tool of confrontation between China and the United States," he said.

☆ China's answer to ChatGPT? Baidu shares tumble as it unveils Ernie Bot
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Eduardo Baptista | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

"For sure we cannot say that it's perfect," said Baidu CEO Robin Li, presenting Ernie Bot. But the limited presentation of Ernie Bot, restricted to brief, pre-recorded videos, failed to match market hopes and Baidu's Hong Kong-listed shares in the firm tumbled as much as 10% before clawing back some ground. Starting Thursday, Ernie Bot will be open to an initial group of users with invitation codes, and companies can apply to embed the bot into their products via Baidu's cloud platform. "Ernie Bot is not a tool of confrontation between China and the United States," he said. Chinese state media outlets and a Shaolin temple were among the first sign-ups to become Ernie Bot partners.

☆ Baidu shares drop to 8-week lows after company reveals ChatGPT rival
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Men interact with a Baidu AI robot near the company logo at its headquarters in Beijing, China April 23, 2021. During a livestreamed release event, Baidu CEO Robin Li emphasized the company's product — called Ernie bot — is not perfect. Baidu is prioritizing initial Ernie bot access for what it calls 650 ecosystem business partners, which include some media companies, banks and car firms. Within an hour of the Ernie bot announcement, Baidu said 30,000 corporate clients had joined the waitlist for access to the chatbot. Baidu's Li said Ernie bot had similar issues if used enough, and that it wasn't perfect.

☆ China Favors Chips, AI Executives Over Internet Tycoons at Top Political Meetings
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-05 | by ( Shen Lu | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference opened at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Saturday. A number of prominent Chinese internet executives have been left out of the country’s top political meetings in Beijing this week, giving way to experts in artificial intelligence and semiconductors as Chinese leader Xi Jinping ’s priorities shift amid rising technology competition with the U.S.Pony Ma , Robin Li and William Ding , the chief executives of Chinese internet companies Tencent Holdings Ltd., Baidu Inc. and NetEase Inc. respectively, are conspicuous in their absence from this year’s list of delegates to the National People’s Congress, China’s legislative body, and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a political advisory body. Also missing was Lenovo Group Ltd. CEO Yang Yuanqing .

☆ China says it sees the potential of ChatGPT-like technology
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BEIJING, Feb 24 (Reuters) - China's Ministry of Science and Technology said on Friday said it saw the potential of ChatGPT-like tech and would be pushing for the integration of artificial intelligence into Chinese society and the economy. "(This technology) has the potential to be applied in many industries and fields," Chen Jiachang, who heads the ministry's high-tech department, told a news briefing, praising its natural language processing capabilities. Their comments come at a time when Chinese tech companies and investors are keeping an eye on how Beijing will regulate ChatGPT-like technology. Microsoft-backed OpenAI has kept its hit ChatGPT app off-limits to users in China but the app is attracting huge interest in the country, with firms rushing to integrate the technology into their products and launch rival solutions. read moreSearch engine giant Baidu (9888.HK) plans to launch in March a Chinese rival to ChatGPT called ErnieBot.

☆ China appears to be pulling another U-turn, saying it'll promote the use of AI in daily life just days after reports it blocked ChatGPT
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Huileng Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

China said it sees broad potential in the use of AI tech and wants to integrate it into daily life. But that's amid reports China — which controls information tightly — blocked access to ChatGPT. It now wants to integrate the tech into daily life, just days after reports emerged that it had blocked its citizens from accessing viral AI chatbot ChatGPT. Search engine giant Baidu — China's answer to Google — said on Wednesday it plans to launch its own AI chatbot Ernie Bot in March. "AI technology has reached a tipping point and all industries will inevitably go through transformation," Li said in the memo.

☆ Baidu says its alternative to ChatGPT is coming to the public in March
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Sun Yilei | ReutersBEIJING — Chinese tech giant Baidu said Wednesday its artificial intelligence product Ernie bot is set to open to the public next month. "We will embed Ernie bot into Baidu search first and we'll open it to the public in March," Baidu CEO Robin Li said Wednesday during an earnings call, according to a FactSet transcript. Stock Chart Icon Stock chart icon Baidu 12-month share performanceDespite widespread assessments that ChatGPT is transformative for tech, businesses don't have a clear path to monetization yet. For Ernie bot, public partnership announcements include Baidu-backed video streaming platform iQiyi's plans for connecting to the bot for search and AI-generated content. Baidu-backed electric car startup Jidu — which is set to start deliveries this year — also said it plans to incorporate Ernie bot.

Hong Kong CNN —Several popular Chinese apps have removed access to ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot that has taken the world by storm even as major Chinese tech companies race to develop their own equivalent. Two other apps, ChatgptAiAi and Chat AI Conversation, said their ChatGPT services went offline due to “relevant business changes” and policy changes. Meanwhile, Hanwang Technology and Beijing Deep Glint Technology, both developers of AI products and services, closed 10% and 5.5% lower respectively. Despite these concerns, the success of ChatGPT has spurred a global AI race. In the absence of foreign competition within the domestic market, Chinese tech companies have since grown into major international players — many of which are now revving their gears with an eye toward AI.

☆ Baidu beats fourth-quarter revenue estimates, flags chatbot launch
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 31 came in at 33.08 billion yuan ($4.80 billion), inching past analysts' estimates of 32.01 billion yuan, according to Refinitiv data. Revenue from Baidu Core, which includes search-based ad sales, cloud offerings and its autonomous driving initiatives, fell 1% to 25.7 billion yuan. While non-online marketing revenue rose 11% to 7.6 billion yuan, driven by AI and cloud businesses, strict pandemic-related controls in China caused the company's online marketing revenue to drop 6% to 18.1 billion yuan in the reported quarter. A logo of Baidu is seen during the World Internet Conference (WIC) in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, China, November 23, 2020. ($1 = 6.8963 Chinese yuan renminbi)Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru and Eduardo Baptista in Beijing; Editing by Devika Syamnath, Shounak Dasgupta and Tomasz JanowskiOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Baidu's ChatGPT-like app will revolutionise its search engine, says CEO
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Eduardo Baptista | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

BEIJING, Feb 23 (Reuters) - China's Baidu Inc (9888.HK) will use its ChatGPT-like app Ernie Bot to create a "revolutionary" version of its popular search engine, the company's CEO said on Wednesday. Ahead of Ernie Bot’s launch in March, Baidu CEO Robin Li told reporters on a conference call to discuss fourth-quarter results that users would be more dependent on the Baidu search engine once it was embedded with the chatbot. He added that online advertising, the company's main source of revenue, would also be boosted by the integration of Ernie Bot into the search engine. Since early February, more than 400 companies have signed up to join the Ernie Bot community as early users of the app, Baidu has said. He also said Ernie Bot was "state of the art" among large AI-driven language models in terms of understanding China's language and culture.

☆ Baidu beats fourth-quarter revenue estimates, announces $5 bln share buyback
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Feb 22 (Reuters) - China's Baidu Inc (9888.HK) beat revenue estimates for the fourth quarter on Wednesday, bolstered by strength in its advertising, cloud and artificial intelligence businesses, sending its U.S.-listed shares up 7% in premarket trading. Revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 31 came in at 33.08 billion yuan ($4.80 billion), inching past analysts' estimates of 32.01 billion yuan, according to Refinitiv data. Revenue from Baidu Core, which includes search-based ad sales, cloud offerings and its autonomous driving initiatives, fell 1% to 25.7 billion yuan. While non-online marketing revenue rose 11% to 7.6 billion yuan, driven by AI and cloud businesses, strict pandemic-related controls in China caused the company's online marketing revenue to drop 6% to 18.1 billion yuan in the reported quarter. Baidu stands as the best example of the long-term growth of China's AI market and is advancing at the forefront of this new wave," Li said.

Robin Li (or Li Yanhong in Chinese), founder, chairman and CEO of Baidu, introduces the new AI-powered digital assistant "Duer" during the 2015 Baidu Technology Innovation Conference on September 8, 2015 in Beijing, China. Shares of Baidu surged by more than 13% in Hong Kong as the company said it will launch its own artificial intelligence chatbot. The stock rose to $159.80 Hong Kong dollars per share, or 13.48% higher in Asia's morning trade. Google recently announced a similar service, Bard A. I.Ernie stands for "Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration," Baidu said, describing it as a "large language model" that was introduced in 2019. "What distinguishes ERNIE from other language models is its integration of extensive knowledge with massive data, resulting in exceptional understanding and generation capabilities," Baidu said.

Search resuls for: "Bin Li"

25 mentions found