Baidu’s ‘do-or-die’ bet on AI

百度对AI的“背水一战”之赌

Behind the Money

2024-02-07

17 分钟
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Baidu made it big as China’s go-to search engine. But in the past decade the tech giant has struggled, while competitors such as Alibaba and Tencent have soared ahead. The FT’s China tech correspondent Ryan McMorrow looks at chief executive Robin Li’s latest venture, in artificial intelligence, and whether this will be enough to turn the company around.   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  For further reading: Baidu’s bet on AI could make or break China’s fallen tech group Tightened US rules throttle Alibaba and Baidu’s AI chip development Baidu shares fall after Ernie AI chatbot demo disappoints - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  On X, follow Ryan McMorrow (@rwmcmorrow) and Michela Tindera (@mtindera07), or follow Michela on LinkedIn for updates about the show and more.  Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • Back in September, Robin Li, the CEO of one of China's biggest tech companies,

  • Baidu, appears for a speech at a conference in Beijing.

  • He's wearing a black button-down with the Baidu logo stamped on his shirt.

  • In his speech, Li has a clear message to the other entrepreneurs and executives at the conference.

  • Don't compete with Baidu.

  • So it's a bit of an odd message, essentially telling the competition, stay away, don't even try.

  • That's the FT's China Tech correspondent, Ryan McMurrow.

  • Earlier in the year, Baidu had released its first AI chatbot called Erniebot.

  • It's essentially China's version of ChatGBT.

  • And Li is trying to squash competition to Baidu's new technology.

  • So he singles out entrepreneurs in the audience and he says, And so that means he's saying,

  • There's no point in jumping into foundational models and really making it a race to the bottom where everyone's competing on price.

  • And instead, you should jump into building apps for foundational models.