Baidu Shares Surge as New AI Models Challenge Competitors

Baidu shares jump 10% following release of new open-source AI models

ZHEJIANG, CHINA - MARCH 16 2023: A view of the logo of ERNIE Bot, an AI chatbot service developed by Chinese search engine Baidu, March 16, 2023. Shares of Chinese tech giant Baidu were trading up 10.7% in Asia on Tuesday, as investors appeared to react positively to the release of two new AI models over the weekend. Baidu released two new artificial intelligence models on Sunday, including the latest version of its foundational "Ernie" model and a new reasoning model that it said rivaled DeepSeek's R1 model. CNBC is not able to verify these claims. A reasoning model is a large language model designed to process complex problems in a similar way to humans, breaking prompts down into smaller pieces and considering multiple approaches before generating responses. According to Kai Wang, a senior equity analyst for Morningstar, the stock jump is likely a "delayed reaction" to the new models as Baidu vies to regain a leading position in China's AI space. "The stock also hasn't gotten as much love as the other hyperscalers but still it's a platform that stands to benefit from greater AI demand since enterprises will need someone to help them with hosting, scaling, and computing power," he said. A hyperscaler refers to a major cloud computing company that provides massive data centers for computing storage and demands. Baidu said on Sunday that its ERNIE X1 reasoning model "delivers performance on par with DeepSeek R1 at only half the price," and has "stronger understanding, planning, reflection, and evolution capabilities," according to a report from Reuters. Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek upended the AI industry in January when it released its R1 open-source reasoning model, which rivaled models of American competitors, despite claims it was produced at a fraction of the cost and with far less powerful chips. DeepSeek quickly overtook Baidu in China's AI race, despite the company being one of the first in the market to launch a ChatGPT-like chatbot with its Ernie Bot, according to Wei Sun, principal analyst of artificial intelligence at Counterpoint Research, who noted other tech giants like Alibaba and Bytedance have also pulled ahead. "Baidu's competitiveness hinges on whether its new models truly deliver on the promised performance and cost advantages," Sun said, noting, however, that AI pricing, particularly in China's market, is highly fluid. Baidu's latest models, similarly to DeepSeek's R1, have been released as open-sourced, meaning the source code is freely available on the open web for possible modification and redistribution. This represents a change from Baidu's prior strategy of focusing on proprietary models. "By open-sourcing its models, Baidu seeks to once again position its technology as an industry standard, strengthening its influence in the AI community and expand its market share," said Sun.

What's Going On With Baidu Shares Monday? - Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU)

Baidu, Inc. BIDU shares are trading higher on Monday after the company announced the launch of ERNIE 4.5 and deep-thinking model ERNIE X1. What To Know: The Chinese technology giant claims that ERNIE 4.5 outperforms ChatGPT 4.5 in multiple categories, such as its multimodal capabilities, while priced at just 1% of ChatGPT 4.5's cost. Additionally, the company states that ERNIE 4.5 demonstrates strong intelligence and contextual awareness. Furthermore, Baidu states that it features refined language skills, enhanced reasoning and significant improvements in hallucination prevention. ERNIE X1 is the company's first multimodal deep-thinking reasoning model capable of tool use. It supports a variety of tools, including advanced search, Q&A on a given document, image understanding and AI image generation. Baidu says the deep-thinking model also excels in logical reasoning, literary creation, and complex calculations. With the launch of ERNIE 4.5 and ERNIE X1, ERNIE Bot is now available to the public ahead of schedule, and both models of ERNIE Bot are free of charge. See Also: Behind the Scenes of Dell Technologies's Latest Options Trends BIDU Price Action: At the time of publication, Baidu shares are trading 9.09% higher at $102.37, according to data from Benzinga Pro. Image: This illustration was generated using artificial intelligence via Midjourney. BIDUBaidu Inc$101.928.63%Stock Score Locked: Want to See it? Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Reveal Full ScoreEdge RankingsMomentum53.87Growth7.00Quality51.06Value93.75Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewMarket News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Why Baidu Stock Soared Higher Today | The Motley Fool

The Chinese tech giant announced the launch of two new powerful artificial intelligence (AI) models. Baidu announced on Sunday that it has released two new AI models: ERNIE 4.5 and ERNIE X1. The company stated that X1 delivers "the same performance as DeepSeek R1 at only half the price." That's a big deal as DeepSeek's R1, a rival Chinese model, rocked markets earlier this year when it was reported to have been trained for a small fraction of the price of its American counterparts. X1 is a "deep-thinking reasoning model" that is capable of generating images, interpreting code, reading webpages and making advanced calculations, as well as other complex tasks. The company holds the third most patents related to AI of any company in the world and the new models represent an important step forward for a company that's invested so much in the technology. Baidu faces significant competition, however, both domestically and abroad. The company, which also runs China's latest search engine, has seen some weakness in its advertising revenue, a core part of its business. Still, Baidu is in a great position to take advantage of its AI innovations, self-driving technology, and cloud infrastructure.