Baidu
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Baidu’s Robotaxi Rides Match Waymo’s Volume at 250,000 Weekly
Baidu’s Apollo Go robotaxi service is rapidly expanding, achieving over 250,000 weekly driverless rides as of October 31st, rivaling Google’s Waymo. Operating primarily in China, Apollo Go also plans international deployments. The company has fulfilled 17 million ride orders and driven 240 million kilometers, including 140 million driverless kilometers. Baidu emphasizes safety, reporting a low airbag deployment rate. Investors await Q3 earnings to assess Apollo Go’s financial impact and long-term strategy, amid intense competition in China’s autonomous driving sector.
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Baidu to Pilot Robotaxis in Switzerland, Eyes European Market
Baidu’s Apollo Go robotaxi unit will begin Swiss test drives in December through a strategic partnership with PostBus, aiming to launch a driverless taxi service, “AmiGo”, by 2027 using RT6 electric vehicles. Baidu also plans robotaxi deployments in the UK and Germany via partnerships with Lyft and Uber. This expansion reflects the intensifying competition in the European autonomous vehicle market, with Pony.ai, Waymo, and Uber also pursuing European deployments, highlighting the strategic importance of partnerships and regulatory compliance.
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Baidu Shares Surge on AI Partnership and Capital Infusion
Baidu’s Hong Kong shares surged following its intensified AI focus and strategic partnerships, including a collaboration with China Merchants Group. The company is leveraging its Ernie Bot and investing heavily in AI development, backed by a recent $56.2 million bond offering. This move aims to bolster Baidu’s competitive position in China’s burgeoning AI market, where rivals like Tencent are also actively investing. The initiatives reflect Baidu’s commitment to translating AI research into practical applications, particularly in industrial intelligence.
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Baidu to Unveil New Inference Model by Late August, Reportedly Surpassing OpenAI’s Full-Power O3 in Select Capabilities
Baidu is expected to launch its latest Ernie inference model by late August, reportedly surpassing OpenAI’s o3 in reasoning and computation. An updated Ernie foundational model is also planned. This occurs as OpenAI prepares to launch GPT-5, a unified, multi-modal system. Enhanced inference capabilities are becoming vital amid increasing competition in the AI landscape. Baidu, the first Chinese company with a ChatGPT-like chatbot, aims to compete with OpenAI and others by upgrading its models.
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Jack Ma Spotted B
th, 2024 – A new report highlights the significant environmental impact of training large AI models. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, estimates the carbon footprint of training a single large language model to be equivalent to several transatlantic flights. The report emphasizes the need for more efficient AI training methods and the use of renewable energy sources to mitigate the environmental costs of AI development. The findings are raising concerns among environmental advocates and policymakers.
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A recent report from UC Berkeley reveals the substantial carbon footprint of training large AI models, equivalent to several transatlantic flights for a single model. This highlights the urgent need for more efficient training methods and the adoption of renewable energy sources to reduce the environmental impact of AI development. The findings are prompting concerns from environmental advocates and policymakers.
Baidu Launches 2026 Campus Recruitment with 90%+ AI Roles in Dual Hiring Cycles
Baidu has initiated its 2026 campus recruitment, offering over 4,000 positions spanning 256 specialized roles across seven Chinese cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Dalian, and Hangzhou. Over 90% of openings are AI-related, including 90 newly created roles in multimodal systems, cross-modal algorithms, and large-scale model architecture. The recruitment features a dual-batch system: early applicants bypass written exams for accelerated interviews, while unselected candidates may reapply during the regular admission cycle. (79 words)
Tencent Music Surpasses Baidu in Market Cap, Analysts Affirm ‘Copyright-Pay-Dividend’ Model Validated
Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) briefly surpassed Baidu in market capitalization, highlighting a market re-evaluation. Investors favor TME’s proven “copyright-to-subscribers-to-revenue” model over Baidu’s AI investments, which await clearer commercial returns. This shift signals changing internet traffic dynamics and investment logic, with TME evolving into a dedicated content provider.
Robin Li Announces Baidu Management Shake-up: Haijian He Joins as CFO
Baidu founder Robin Li announced a leadership shake-up, appointing He Haijian as the new CFO and Jackson He to head HR and Administration. Cui Shanshan will focus on her role as Secretary-General of the Culture Committee. He Haijian brings extensive financial experience from Kingsoft Cloud and major financial institutions.
Baidu’s ERNIE 4.5 Model Series Available First on China’s Computing Platform
Baidu has open-sourced its ERNIE 4.5 AI models, featuring multi-modal Mixture-of-Experts with enhanced orthogonality. Modong Space, China’s national computing platform, is the first to integrate these advanced models. ERNIE 4.5 optimizes training and inference for improved text generation, image comprehension, and multi-modal reasoning, catering to diverse real-world applications.
Baidu Open-Sources WENQING 4.5 Series Models, Featuring 10 AI Models
Baidu has released its ERNIE 4.5 open-source large language model series, featuring ten models including Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) variants. These models offer fully open-sourced pre-training weights and inference code, accessible via platforms like Hugging Face. The series boasts innovative heterogeneous MoE architecture for multimodal capabilities and achieves state-of-the-art performance on various benchmarks, outperforming competitors in text and multimodal tasks. The models are distributed under the Apache 2.0 license, promoting both academic and commercial use.