Chinese big tech Baidu predicted that artificial intelligence (AI) ‘applications’ will grow rapidly this yr. They announced that beyond the initial stage of developing models and servicing APIs, AI shall be utilized in earnest and profits will increase.
The South China Morning Post reported that Baidu founder and CEO Li Yanhong said in his Latest 12 months’s address on the 2nd that he expected AI investments to bear fruit this yr to employees.
In accordance with this, CEO Lee said, “Generative AI based on basic models is being rapidly deployed in quite a lot of industries and scenarios,” adding, “Although ‘super apps’ haven’t yet emerged, the penetration rate of AI isn’t low and can grow exponentially by 2025.” “We’ll proceed to see growth,” he said.
He continued, “We hope that the seeds planted in 2023 and 2024 will take root, bloom, and bear fruit as market awareness and recognition grow in 2025.”
In today’s 1,200-word Latest 12 months’s address, AI was mentioned 11 times.
Baidu is one in every of the primary big tech corporations to leap into AI in China. Nonetheless, since 2023, there was an AI boom in China, resulting in fierce competition. Last yr, there was a price battle and promoting war not only with big tech corporations resembling ByteDance and Tencent, but in addition with AI startups represented by Six Dragons. Particularly, it’s well-known that there are too many large language models (LLMs) in China and that it’s a “national waste.”
In consequence, Baidu’s representative chatbot ‘Erniebot’ currently has 16 million monthly users, rating second in China. There’s a giant difference from ByteDance’s ‘Dubao’, which ranked first with 60 million users.
CEO Lee emphasized that even business failure have to be accepted. “In case you move to the forefront of technology, you’ve got to take greater risks and accept a better probability of failure,” he explained. “There have been times before while you had no idea whether a project would work out until the last day.”
Baidu, China’s leading search service provider, has been going all-in to remodel into an AI company over the past two years.
Nonetheless, the market’s response isn’t so favorable. Nasdaq-listed stocks fell 27% last yr, closing at $84.31 (about 123,600 won) on the last trading day. Evaluation suggests that this Latest 12 months’s address is meant to supply hope inside this atmosphere.
Reporter Lim Da-jun ydj@aitimes.com
