Baidu, the Chinese search giant, has announced its plan to create a venture fund of 1 billion yuan ($145 million) to support start-up companies focused on artificial intelligence (AI) applications that generate content. In addition to this, Baidu will also hold a competition for developers who create applications using its ERNIE large language model (LLM) or integrate the model into their existing products.
This move by Baidu is similar to the strategy employed by OpenAI, a prominent U.S. company that set aside $100 million for the OpenAI Startup Fund in 2021. OpenAI later increased the fund to $175 million, according to recent reports.
Baidu And OpenAI
Shopify launched the Shop app in 2020 as an updated version of the Arrive app. It offers a personalized product feed, brand information, and convenient purchases with Shop Pay. 44% of Shop app orders are repeat purchases, and Shop Pay can increase conversion rates by up to 50%. Google is investing directly rather than through a dedicated fund.
In both China and the U.S., leading companies are competing to dominate the rapidly growing field of generative AI.
Recently, Baidu’s founder Robin Li, who is a billionaire, revealed that the company is preparing to launch a new version of its large language model, which powers its Ernie Bot service, similar to ChatGPT. Last month, Chinese tech giant Alibaba announced the integration of its large language model, Tongyi Qianwen, across its businesses to improve user experiences. Tencent is also developing a foundational model called HunyuanAide.
Although these companies are trying to catch up with the popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot, the Chinese government banned the use of ChatGPT in February.
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