Baidu unveils $145M AI fund for China’s push towards AI self-reliance

The U.S.-China decoupling is reportedly leading to a divided tech landscape between these two major economies for defining the development of the hot space of generative AI, which converts text into different types of content like prose, graphics, and videos.

Apparently, China has been working on developing its own massive language models that are comparable to OpenAI's GPT models in order to lessen its reliance on the American technology infrastructure. But unlike the U.S., some of its most cutting-edge AI initiatives are taking place at renowned internet behemoths, like Baidu.

For the unversed, the autonomous driving and search engine frontrunner rolled out its counterpart to ChatGPT in March.

The 23-year-old company now wants to invest in various other AI firms. This week, Baidu's co-founder and CEO Robin Li made the announcement that a billion yuan ($145 million) fund would be established to support generative AI businesses during a JP Morgan symposium in China.

It has been claimed that the fund is comparable to the $100 million OpenAI Startup Fund, which later increased to $175 million.

As per sources, the fund will finance a project with up to 10 million yuan, or roughly $1.4 million.

Given that the Chinese generative AI firms have not seen the widespread adoption and most investments are concentrated in the seed and early phases, it is not surprising that the fund is targeting early-stage AI applications based on the size of the cheque.

Baidu also plans to utilise the money to increase the use of Ernie Bot, its own large-language model.

It is imperative to note that new apps based on ChatGPT or other language models are being created by American developers.

According to Li, Ernie will also serve as the foundation for an expanding number of developers in China who are creating AI apps.

 

Source Credits: https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/01/baidu-generative-ai-fund-china/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAeAY0_0DRnginGVcRfUDvxSrygzjF_FXcUZJxqwpsB_afL4Jr0KXyPjAfIk7IoHI5qaS-n2ke5Bgbg6Du5hkB6ZbP2M0U56APzWRrNuJ2DLmqqzkRV2Bm3JA4jE-dioEQs84lGQJTksSB1siiB_frf5zBvWwSeI0ne6kf2ihhFs