Latest news with #Ernie4.5Turbo
Business Times
02-07-2025
- Business
- Business Times
Baidu overhauls search engine with AI features, voice function
[BEIJING] Baidu is overhauling China's most popular search engine with AI features and a voice function in its most sweeping revamp for years. The Beijing-based company said it wants to make its mobile app more like an AI chatbot that can help users with writing, drawing and trip planning tasks. It will focus less on keywords and more on natural language searches and also allow users to perform searches by voice in several Chinese dialects. Baidu's search engine has grown bloated and overly complicated in recent years, executives told reporters on Wednesday (Jul 2) at an event in Beijing. 'Baidu search has to change, and we are voluntarily looking for changes,' said Zhao Shiqi, the company's search boss. 'We don't intend to beat others, we need to beat our former self.' Baidu's search platform now contends with social apps like ByteDance's Douyin and AI-native browsers for eyeballs. Its online marketing revenue has declined for four consecutive quarters, underscoring its loss of users. Executives have said that AI-generated search content would eventually help advertising pick up. Baidu on Wednesday also rolled out its first image-to-video model to compete with the likes of ByteDance and Kuaishou. Executives hope the AI generation function will help marketers create engaging videos on Baidu's social feeds. Baidu counts on AI to drive inference demand for its nascent cloud division, which competes with much larger rivals like Alibaba Group Holding It's also hoping that its Ernie foundation models will stay competitive against DeepSeek, seeding an entire ecosystem of AI-native applications. In April, Baidu rolled out Ernie 4.5 Turbo and Ernie X1 Turbo, the latest versions of its flagship foundation and reasoning models that it said are faster and cheaper than previous iterations. The X1 Turbo was designed to compete with open-sourced models like Alibaba's Qwen and DeepSeek, which have gained greater recognition within the global developer community. BLOOMBERG
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Baidu's AI cloud soars — but the risks are stacking up
China's biggest AI player, Baidu (BIDU), beat expectations with a surge in cloud revenue, but its ad business is shrinking, it's slashing AI prices to stay ahead of local rivals, and fresh U.S. chip export issues could cut its momentum short. In Q1 earnings posted Wednesday, Baidu reported that its AI Cloud revenue jumped 42% year-over-year, and in tandem, net income soared 42% to $951 million. However, the beat was padded by nearly $618 million in investment revaluation gains, not just operational lift. But even as the company leaned hard into enterprise AI, its core ad business fell 6% vs. last year. That decline in online advertising revenue during Q1 2025 looks to be primarily attributed to macro factors, including slowing consumer spending in China. Observers following search volumes on both sides of the Pacific may wonder if Baidu's results recall Alphabet's recent panic when an Apple (AAPL) exec testified regarding reduced search volumes. While there's no direct evidence linking this decline to AI reducing search volumes, it's plausible that the integration of AI technologies, like Baidu's Ernie chatbots, could be altering user behavior. Such a shift could impact ad impressions and click-through rates, with knock-on effects for advertising revenue. However, Baidu has not explicitly stated that AI is the cause of the advertising revenue decline. Speaking of Ernie, Baidu also finds itself in an arms race at home — and racing to undercut. Last month, the tech giant slashed prices on its Ernie 4.5 Turbo model by 80%, and cut pricing on its X1 Turbo model by half, in a bid to stay ahead of domestic competitors like Alibaba (BABA), DeepSeek, ByteDance, and Moonshot AI. Founder Robin Li told developers the company's focus is on 'removing friction,' that is, letting builders create without worrying about model cost or capabilities. It's a slightly different kind of AI boom than the one playing out in the U.S., where Microsoft's (MSFT) Azure grew 33%, Google Cloud 28%, and AWS 17%, with strong monetization and margin performance. Baidu is growing faster, arguably, but it appears to be doing so by sacrificing pricing power and eating capex, corporate moves that can quickly turn into a race to the bottom. It's not that American companies aren't also wary of capex and overall spending, however, with Microsoft recent layoff's suggested ongoing scrutiny of its costs. Complicating matters for Baidu: The U.S. Commerce Department's recent guidance warning against Huawei's Ascend AI chips has reignited geopolitical risk, if it ever died down at all. Chinese officials called the move 'unilateral bullying,' and Baidu — reliant on domestic chip supply — is caught in the crossfire. Baidu's ambitions aren't limited to China. The company's autonomous driving unit, Apollo Go, began operating its first robotaxis in Dubai this month — part of a push to commercialize AI on a global scale and an understandable move given the massive AI opportunity in the middle east, which American tech companies are themselves racing to capitalize on, per Wedbush. Baidu's AI ambitions are real and, to an extent, already paying off. But they're unfolding in a market that's fragmented, subsidized, and shadowed by geopolitics. Cost-cutting is helping to improve results for now, with longer-term effects not yet clear. Calling the outlook 'cloudy' seems fair. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Asahi Shimbun
09-05-2025
- Business
- Asahi Shimbun
China's Baidu looks to patent AI system to decipher animal sounds
A Baidu sign is seen at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China July 6, 2023. (REUTERS) BEIJING--Ever wished you could understand what your cat is trying to tell you? A Chinese tech company is exploring whether it's possible to translate those mysterious meows into human language using artificial intelligence. Baidu, owner of China's largest search engine, has filed a patent with China National Intellectual Property Administration proposing a system to convert animal vocalizations into human language, according to a patent document published this week. Scientists have long attempted to decode animal communication, and Baidu's patent represents the latest effort to leverage AI to do so. The document says the system will collect animal data, including vocal sounds, behavioral patterns, and physiological signals, which will be preprocessed and merged before an AI-powered analysis designed to recognize the animal's emotional state. The emotional states would then be mapped to semantic meanings and translated into human language. The system could allow 'deeper emotional communication and understanding between animals and humans, improving the accuracy and efficiency of cross-species communication,' Baidu said in the patent document. 'There has been a lot of interest in the filing of our patent application,' a Baidu spokesperson said when asked how soon the company could turn the patent into a product. 'Currently, it is still in the research phase.' Baidu was among the first major Chinese companies to invest heavily in AI following the 2022 debut of OpenAI's ChatGPT. It unveiled its latest AI model, Ernie 4.5 Turbo, last month, saying it matched the industry's best in several benchmark tests. However, the Ernie chatbot has struggled to gain traction amid fierce competition. A number of efforts are underway outside China to try and interpret what animals want to convey. International researchers at Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) have been using statistical analysis and AI since 2020 to understand how sperm whales communicate, while the Earth Species Project, a non-profit founded in 2017 whose backers include LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, is also trying to use AI to decode animal communication. Local media reports about Baidu's patent application sparked discussion on Chinese social media platforms late on Wednesday. While some were excited about the possibility of eventually being better able to understand their pets, others were skeptical. 'While it sounds impressive, we'll need to see how it performs in real-world applications,' commented a user on Weibo.
Free Malaysia Today
08-05-2025
- Business
- Free Malaysia Today
Baidu aims to patent AI that deciphers animal sounds
Baidu unveiled its latest AI model, Ernie 4.5 Turbo, last month, saying it matched the industry's best in several benchmark tests. (Reuters pic) BEIJING : Ever wished you could understand what your cat is trying to tell you? A Chinese tech company is exploring whether it's possible to translate those mysterious meows into human language using artificial intelligence (AI). Baidu, owner of China's largest search engine, has filed a patent with China National Intellectual Property Administration proposing a system to convert animal vocalisations into human language, according to a patent document published this week. Scientists have long attempted to decode animal communication, and Baidu's patent represents the latest effort to leverage AI to do so. The document says the system will collect animal data, including vocal sounds, behavioural patterns, and physiological signals, which will be preprocessed and merged before an AI-powered analysis designed to recognise the animal's emotional state. The emotional states would then be mapped to semantic meanings and translated into human language. 'The system could allow 'deeper emotional communication and understanding between animals and humans, improving the accuracy and efficiency of cross-species communication,' Baidu said in the patent document. 'There has been a lot of interest in the filing of our patent application,' a Baidu spokesman said when asked how soon the company could turn the patent into a product. 'Currently, it is still in the research phase,' he added. Baidu was among the first major Chinese companies to invest heavily in AI following the 2022 debut of OpenAI's ChatGPT. It unveiled its latest AI model, Ernie 4.5 Turbo, last month, saying it matched the industry's best in several benchmark tests. However, the Ernie chatbot has struggled to gain traction amid fierce competition. A number of efforts are underway outside China to try and interpret what animals want to convey. International researchers at Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) have been using statistical analysis and AI since 2020 to understand how sperm whales communicate, while the Earth Species Project, a non-profit founded in 2017 whose backers include LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, is also trying to use AI to decode animal communication. Local media reports about Baidu's patent application sparked discussion on Chinese social media platforms late yesterday. While some were excited about the possibility of eventually being better able to understand their pets, others were sceptical. 'While it sounds impressive, we'll need to see how it performs in real-world applications,' commented a user on Weibo.
Business Recorder
08-05-2025
- Business
- Business Recorder
China's Baidu looks to patent AI system to decipher animal sounds
BEIJING: Ever wished you could understand what your cat is trying to tell you? A Chinese tech company is exploring whether it's possible to translate those mysterious meows into human language using artificial intelligence. Baidu, owner of China's largest search engine, has filed a patent with China National Intellectual Property Administration proposing a system to convert animal vocalisations into human language, according to a patent document published this week. Scientists have long attempted to decode animal communication, and Baidu's patent represents the latest effort to leverage AI to do so. The document says the system will collect animal data, including vocal sounds, behavioural patterns, and physiological signals, which will be preprocessed and merged before an AI-powered analysis designed to recognise the animal's emotional state. The emotional states would then be mapped to semantic meanings and translated into human language. The system could allow 'deeper emotional communication and understanding between animals and humans, improving the accuracy and efficiency of cross-species communication,' Baidu said in the patent document. 'There has been a lot of interest in the filing of our patent application,' a Baidu spokesperson said when asked how soon the company could turn the patent into a product. 'Currently, it is still in the research phase.' Baidu was among the first major Chinese companies to invest heavily in AI following the 2022 debut of OpenAI's ChatGPT. It unveiled its latest AI model, Ernie 4.5 Turbo, last month, saying it matched the industry's best in several benchmark tests. However, the Ernie chatbot has struggled to gain traction amid fierce competition. Baidu launches AI agent Xinxiang for Android platform, iOS version under review A number of efforts are underway outside China to try and interpret what animals want to convey. International researchers at Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) have been using statistical analysis and AI since 2020 to understand how sperm whales communicate, while the Earth Species Project, a non-profit founded in 2017 whose backers include LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, is also trying to use AI to decode animal communication. Local media reports about Baidu's patent application sparked discussion on Chinese social media platforms late on Wednesday. While some were excited about the possibility of eventually being better able to understand their pets, others were sceptical. 'While it sounds impressive, we'll need to see how it performs in real-world applications,' commented a user on Weibo.
