Baidu has launched a slew of AI applications after its Ernie chatbot received public approval.
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Chinese tech giant Baidu saw its shares in Hong Kong soar nearly 16% on Wednesday as the company ramps up its artificial intelligence plans and partnerships.
Shares in the Beijing-based firm, which holds a dominant position in China’s search engine market, had gained nearly 8% overnight in U.S. trading.
The strong stock performance comes after Baidu earlier this week secured an AI-related deal with China Merchants Group, a major state-owned enterprise, focused on transportation, finance, and property development.
“Both sides plan to focus on applications of large language models, AI agents and ‘digital employees,’ vowing to make scalable and sustainable progress in industrial intelligence based on real-life business scenarios,” according to Baidu’s statement translated by CNBC.
Baidu has been aggressively pursuing its AI business, which includes its popular large language model and AI chatbot Ernie Bot.
As it seeks to gain an edge in China’s competitive AI space, the company on Tuesday disclosed a 4.4 billion yuan ($56.2 million) offshore bond offering. This follows a $2 billion bond issuance back in March.
Other Chinese AI players, such as Tencent, have also been raising funds, including via debt sales this year, to support the billions being poured into their AI capabilities.
Signs of AI strength
At a developer conference last week, Baidu unveiled a series of AI advancements, including the company’s latest reasoning model, Ernie X 1.1.
According to the company, multiple benchmark results showed that its model’s overall performance surpassed that of Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek’s latest reasoning model. CNBC could not independently verify that claim.
To train its AI models, the company has also started using internally designed chips, The Information reported last week, citing people with direct knowledge of the matter.
In addition to providing a new potential business venture, Baidu’s chip drive could help it reduce reliance on AI chips from Nvidia, which has been subject to shifting export controls from Washington.
Gimme Credit Senior Bond Analyst, Saurav Sen, said in a report last week that Baidu’s recent capital allocation revealed that the company is making an “all-in AI pivot.”
Baidu, whose Hong Kong shares have gained nearly 59% this year, reported a drop in second-quarter revenue last month as its core advertising business struggled and returns from AI investments remained limited.
