Baidu’s Ernie Bot: China’s Answer to ChatGPT in AI Battle with US. Baidu Inc., the leading Chinese internet search provider, has unveiled its artificial intelligence (AI) system “Ernie Bot” in a landmark moment for the company. Baidu’s billionaire founder Robin Li and technology chief Wang Haifeng demonstrated the AI system in public, outlining how AI will power its cloud and content businesses. Ernie Bot is a large-scale machine learning model trained on data over several years. It will be integrated into all of Baidu’s main operations, from its flagship search app to cloud computing and autonomous driving software.
The company has invested billions of dollars in AI in a long-term quest to reinvent itself from an online marketing firm to a provider of deeper technology. Integrating Ernie Bot with the online search will likely reverse Baidu’s ad market share loss, and it has gained roughly 20% or more than $7 billion in market value this year, outperforming most of its Chinese internet peers.
Ernie Bot is Baidu’s answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Dall-E, demonstrating the ability to create songs and videos and provide full solutions on demand. While US companies lead the effort in generative AI, Chinese companies, including Baidu, Alibaba Group Holding, and Tencent Holdings, are catching up thanks to vast data hoards and their ability to fine-tune and roll out technology rapidly. Collectively, they could usher in a technological revolution to dwarf the mobile age.
Baidu’s Ernie Bot is expected to have an edge over ChatGPT, given its understanding of the Chinese language and culture. The company is betting big on AI in a long-term quest to reinvent itself from an online marketing firm to a provider of more profound technology. The successful launch of Ernie Bot could have significant consequences for Baidu and its domestic peers as they attempt to create a next-generation platform for the world’s largest internet market.
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