Chinese search giant Baidu says it’s launching the company’s latest version of its ChatGPT-like large language model, Ernie 4, by the end of this year. This comes after Baidu unveiled the Ernie Bot generative chatbot in March and is waiting for the green light from Beijing for its commercial release for wider public use.
The Chinese government’s new set of AI regulations took effect last week. It issued the 24 guidelines that require platform providers like Baidu to register their services and conduct a review before their commercial release.
The new rules make it mandatory to put labels on synthetically created photos and videos. They also require companies introducing an AI model to use “legitimate data” and not fake news and information to train their models. Authorities can require disclosure of that data to regulators on request.
Boosted by growth in advertising and the low base from last year, Baidu reported better-than-expected revenue for the quarter that ended on June 30. According to Refinitiv, Baidu’s second-quarter revenue climbed 15% year-on-year to 34.06 billion yuan (US$ 4.67 billion). Baidu’s sales in the non-advertising sectors, such as AI and cloud services, also increased 12%.
Meanwhile, Baidu’s local rival Tencent Holdings is set to release its foundation model Hunyuan sometime this year, while Alibaba Cloud unveiled Tongyi Qianwen in April.
