China is pushing for AI self-reliance as the US-China decoupling gives rise to a divided tech landscape between the two major economies. Generative AI, which transforms text into various forms of content like prose, images, and videos, is one of the hottest areas of technology in China. Chinese tech companies such as Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent are developing their own large language models, and Baidu has launched a $145m fund to back generative AI companies. The fund will invest up to $1.4m in a project, targeting early-stage AI applications and growing the adoption of Baidu’s own large language model Ernie Bot. Baidu’s co-founder and CEO, Robin Li, is bullish on China’s AI development, predicting that Chinese companies will lead the way in discovering commercial applications for AI.
Baidu is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in internet-related services and products including AI, search engine and autonomous driving technology. It was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Beijing.
Robin Li is the co-founder and CEO of Baidu. He is also a computer science student from SUNY Buffalo and has a Master’s degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo. After working as a staff engineer at IDD Information Services, Li founded Baidu with Eric Xu and launched the search engine in 2000. He is regarded as a pioneer of the internet industry in China and was listed in Time magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2013.
