Tag: baidu

Samsung Galaxy S24 Series to Feature Baidu’s Ernie AI Chatbot in China

Samsung Electronics will feature Baidu’s Ernie Bot as a key attraction of its new Galaxy S24 smartphone series in China.

The South Korean maker has pitched its latest handset family as the first of a wave of AI smartphones, and Baidu’s artificial intelligence tools will help with text summarization, organization and translation, Baidu said in a statement. It will also provide the backend support for Samsung’s “circle to search” feature, which is handled by Alphabet’s Google in other markets.

Google’s Android software provides the backbone for the majority of smartphones in China, but the company’s add-on mobile services and app store are not available, leaving it to local companies to fill gaps with alternatives like Tencent Holdings’s WeChat.

For Baidu, the Samsung deal marks a major adopter of its Ernie AI, one of the earliest and best efforts to create a Chinese challenger to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Samsung’s market share has crumbled in the world’s largest smartphone arena in past years to roughly 1-2 percent, crowded out by Apple’s iPhones as well as local brands from Xiaomi to Huawei Technologies. Showcasing Ernie prominently might appeal to its millions of existing users, as the Korean company safeguards its global presence and tries to pioneer a new mainstream category with foldables.

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Tencent to Cut Cloud Services Prices by Up to 40 Percent to Match Rivals

Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings is cutting prices for cloud services by up to 40 percent from June amid similar moves from rivals that have plunged the sector into a price war.

The fierce competition comes amid soft corporate demand, with the Chinese economy in the midst of a wobbly recovery since abandoning strict COVID-19 restrictions last year.

Alibaba Group Holding said last month it would slash prices for some cloud products by up to 50 percent. State-owned China Mobile joined Tencent on Tuesday in announcing cuts, saying prices for some services would be reduced by up to 60 percent for a limited time.

Charlie Chai, an analyst at 86Research, said Chinese cloud service providers had in the past made efforts to avert a price war but “at the end of the day they still went down this path”. He noted the companies had expanded aggressively and now had too much capacity.

Wei Yunfeng, a researcher at data firm IDC, said the price cuts were triggered in part by high sales targets despite slowing growth for the market.

Chai said a more challenging cloud market would force companies to focus on product differentiation and that Baidu was well positioned as it had “unique, AI-centric products”.

“For participants that choose to join the war, the near-term margin impact can be significant,” he said, estimating it could take 4 to 7 percentage points off their cloud operating profit margins.

Alibaba’s cloud revenue accounts for about 9 percent of its total revenue. Tencent does not provide separate figures for cloud revenue.

Tencent on Wednesday marked a return to revenue growth in the first quarter as it recovered from COVID-related disruptions and a regulatory freeze on gaming licences a year earlier.

James Mitchell, Tencent’s chief strategy officer, told analysts on a call: “The impact of price cuts on Tencent as a whole is not notable.”

Mitchell said cloud services only represent “a mid single digit percentage” of Tencent’s total revenue.

Moreover, price cuts only apply to its infrastructure-as-a-service business, which represent only a portion of Tencent’s cloud services.

Alibaba reports on Thursday.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

 

Google I/O 2023 saw the search giant repeatedly tell us that it cares about AI, alongside the launch of its first foldable phone and Pixel-branded tablet. This year, the company is going to supercharge its apps, services, and Android operating system with AI technology. We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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Baidu Sues Apple, Other App Developers Over Fake Copies of Ernie Bot App

Chinese search engine giant Baidu has filed lawsuits against “relevant” app developers and Apple over fake copies of its Ernie bot app available on Apple’s App Store.

The company’s artificial intelligence powered Ernie bot, launched last month, has been touted as China’s closest answer to the US-developed chatbot ChatGPT.

Baidu said it had lodged lawsuits in Beijing Haidian People’s Court against the developers behind the counterfeit applications of its Ernie bot and the Apple company.

“At present, Ernie does not have any official app,” Baidu said in a statement late on Friday posted on its official “Baidu AI” WeChat account.

It also posted a photograph of its court filing.

“Until our company’s official announcement, any Ernie app you see from App Store or other stores are fake,” it said.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A Reuters search on Saturday found there were still at least four apps bearing the Chinese-language name of the Ernie bot, all fake, in Apple’s App Store.

The Ernie bot is only available to users who apply for and receive access codes. In its statement, Baidu also warned against people selling access codes.

Baidu unveiled its artificial intelligence-powered chatbot known as Ernie Bot in March this year. Ernie stands short for “Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration”. The popularity of ChatGPT, backed by Microsoft, has triggered a frenzied rush among Chinese tech giants and startups alike to develop a rival. 

Ernie Bot initially opened to only a group of users with invitation codes, and companies can apply to embed the bot into their products via Baidu’s cloud platform.

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China Directs Tech Companies Not to Offer Access to ChatGPT on Their Platforms: Report

In yet another clampdown on big tech companies, China has instructed them not to offer access to ChatGPT services on their platforms, either directly or via third parties, people with direct knowledge of the matter told Nikkei Asia.

Beijing’s clampdown on ChatGPT, the hugely popular AI-powered chatbot, comes as little surprise to many in China’s tech industry.

Chinese state media outlet blasted the chatbot for spreading US government ‘misinformation’ amid growing alarm in Beijing over the AI-powered chatbot’s uncensored replies to user queries, reported Nikkei Asia.

On Monday, state-owned media outlet China Daily said in a post on Weibo, China’s heavily censored equivalent of Twitter, that the chatbot “could provide a helping hand to the US government in its spread of disinformation and its manipulation of global narratives for its own geopolitical interests.”

Tencent Holdings and Ant Group, the fintech affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, have been instructed not to offer access to ChatGPT services on their platforms.

The sources added that tech companies will also need to report to regulators before they launch their own ChatGPT-like services.

ChatGPT, developed by Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI, is not officially available in China but some internet users have been able to access it using a virtual private network (VPN), reported Nikkei Asia.

There have also been dozens of “mini programs” released by third-party developers on Tencent’s WeChat social media app that claim to offer services from ChatGPT.

Under regulatory pressure, Tencent has suspended several such third-party services regardless of whether they were connected to ChatGPT or were in fact copycats, people familiar with the matter told Nikkei.

This is not the first time that China has blocked foreign websites or applications. Beijing has banned dozens of prominent US websites and apps.

Between 2009 and 2010, it moved to block Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Between 2018 and 2019, it instituted bans on Reddit and Wikipedia.

The latest move by regulators comes amid an official backlash against ChatGPT. Sources in the tech industry say they are not surprised by such a clampdown, reported Nikkei Asia.

“Our understanding from the beginning is that ChatGPT can never enter China due to issues with censorship, and China will need its own versions of ChatGPT,” said one executive from a leading tech company.

An executive from another leading Chinese tech player said that even without a direct warning his company would not use ChatGPT, reported Nikkei Asia.

“We have already been a target of the Chinese regulator [amid the tech industry crackdown in recent years], so even if there were no such ban, we would never take the initiative to add ChatGPT to our platforms because its responses are uncontrollable,” the person said.

“There will inevitably be some users who ask the chatbot politically sensitive questions, but the platform would be held accountable for the results.”

Since ChatGPT took the tech world by storm, Chinese tech giants, including Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu, have rushed to unveil their own plans for developing ChatGPT-like services.

These companies have been cautious about wording their announcements, however, with all of them stressing that their services are ChatGPT-like but do not integrate ChatGPT itself, reported Nikkei Asia.

China’s clampdown on ChatGPT comes as tensions between the world’s two largest economies continue to escalate.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said earlier this week that new information suggests Beijing could provide “lethal support” to Russia in the Ukraine war, triggering concerns over a new Cold War. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the claims were false and accused Washington of spreading lies.

After facing headwinds in India last year, Xiaomi is all set to take on the competition in 2023. What are the company’s plans for its wide product portfolio and its Make in India committment in the country? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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Tencent, Alibaba Have Submitted Details of Algorithms Used in Their Products, Says China Regulator

China’s top internet watchdog said on Friday that tech giants such as Tencent and Alibaba have submitted details of algorithms used in some of their products, complying with a drive by authorities to tighten oversight of platform algorithms.

The rules are part of a broad regulatory crackdown by Beijing against its once free-wheeling technology sector. State media had accused internet platforms of using algorithms to invade user privacy and influence their choices.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) published a list of 30 algorithms used in some of the country’s most popular apps, including Alibaba‘s Taobao, Tencent‘s Wechat, Meituan, and ByteDance‘s Douyin, with brief descriptions of their use and gave them classification numbers.

It was the first list published since China in March passed new regulations for algorithm recommendation services and launched a filing system requiring firms and companies to disclose what they used in their apps.

The CAC’s list, for instance, said the Taobao app had logged with it a recommendation algorithm that crunched each user’s visit and search history to recommend them products and services, while Meituan had provided details of the algorithm it used to estimate delivery times and match riders.

Other companies on the list included Chinese online search giant Baidu, short video platform Kuaishou and microblogging site Sina’s Weibo.

© Thomson Reuters 2022

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Self-Driving Vehicle Rules for Public Transport Drafted by China: Details

China should adopt autonomous vehicles in passenger transport with care, the country’s Ministry of Transportation said in drafted rules to regulate the self-driving industry.

The ministry will encourage the use of autonomous vehicles as taxis in easily controlled scenarios in low traffic situations, according to a draft seeking public advice published on Monday.

“The management of transportation with autonomous driving vehicles should stick to the principles with safety as the top priority,” the Ministry of Transportation said in the drafted rules.

China and the US are in a race to commercialize autonomous driving, from cutting-edge technologies in sensors and mapping to regulations balancing between development and safety.

US states like Arizona have been allowing self-driving trucking companies to operate without human drivers, while California approved General Motor‘s robotaxi unit Cruise in June to start charging passengers for its driverless rides.

In China, Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen have also allowed robotaxi operations by companies including Baidu and Pony.ai in restricted areas.

Baidu said on Monday, that it obtained permits to operate the first fully driverless robotaxi services on open roads in two Chinese cities.

The search engine giant said the permits awarded by the southwestern municipality of Chongqing and the central city of Wuhan marked a “turning point” in China’s policy-making towards autonomous driving.

“These permits have deep significance for the industry,” Wei Dong, chief safety operation officer of Baidu’s Intelligent Driving Group, told Reuters in an interview. “If we think of the exploration of space, this moment is equal to landing on the moon.”

At first, Baidu will deploy a batch of five fee-charging robotaxis in each city, where they will be allowed to operate in designated areas from 9am to 5pm in Wuhan and 9:30am to 4:30pm in Chongqing, the company said in a statement.

The service areas span 30 square km in Chongqing’s Yongchuan District and 13 square km in the Wuhan Economic & Technological Development Zone.

© Thomson Reuters 2022

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