China's Baidu Embraces Open Source Model After DeepSeek Success
In a recent announcement, Chinese search engine giant Baidu revealed its decision to adopt an open source model for its upcoming generative AI chatbot release, inspired by the success of AI company DeepSeek. Baidu CEO Robin Li shared that the positive outcomes from DeepSeek had influenced the move towards open-sourcing the source code of its Ernie 4.5 series.
Baidu had previously introduced a ChatGPT-style chatbot in early 2023 with its Ernie 4.0 version, positioning it as a competitor to OpenAI's GPT-4. However, despite its efforts, Ernie faced challenges in gaining widespread adoption, especially with the emergence of DeepSeek's advanced models like R1.
Acknowledging the impact of open-sourcing on adoption rates, Li expressed during an earnings call, "One thing we learned from DeepSeek is that open-sourcing can greatly help adoption." The upcoming Ernie 4.5 series is expected to be Baidu's most advanced models yet, with the aim of making it more accessible to users and customers.
Despite a 2% decline in quarterly revenue to 34.12 billion yuan ($4.7 billion) for the three months ending in December, Baidu's Cloud AI unit experienced a 26% growth to 7.1 billion yuan, primarily driven by AI technologies. The Ernie platform managed 1.65 billion daily user queries and interactions in December, a significant increase from 600 million in August.
However, Baidu's online marketing business, excluding streaming service iQIYI, saw a 7% decrease to 17.9 billion yuan, reflecting the impact of a slowing Chinese economy due to a prolonged property market downturn. This economic situation has led to smaller businesses reducing their advertising expenditure.
Following the financial report, Baidu's U.S.-listed shares experienced a 7% decline in early morning trading, indicating investor response to the revenue drop and market challenges faced by the company.
Baidu embraces open source model for upcoming AI chatbot release after DeepSeek success
Ernie 4.5 series to be publicly available, aiming to enhance adoption rates
Revenue decline for Baidu in Q4 2024, cloud AI unit shows significant growth
Source: REUTERS