Baidu sees positive financials, continues investing in AI

Chinese tech heavyweight Baidu Inc delivered better-than-expected financial results for the April-June period on Tuesday, with its total revenue reaching 34.1 billion yuan ($4.7 billion), an increase of 15 percent year-on-year.

Its non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) net profit stood at 8.0 billion yuan in the second quarter of this year, surging 44 percent year-on-year.

"Generative artificial intelligence and large language models hold immense transformative power in numerous industries, presenting a significant market opportunity for us. To stay ahead of the game, we keep upgrading our models to generate more creative responses while improving training throughput and lowering inference costs," said Robin Li, co-founder and CEO of Baidu.

Baidu is committed to building a new engine around generative AI and large language models to drive sustainable long-term growth, Li said.

Generative AI refers to algorithms that are trained with huge amounts of data and capable of generating content such as images, text, audio and video. It is the key technology underpinning ChatGPT, an AI chatbot developed by US-based AI research company OpenAI.

Luo Rong, chief financial officer of Baidu, said the company has invested in AI for over a decade and is well-positioned to capitalize on the opportunities arising from generative AI and LLM.

Looking ahead, Luo said Baidu will continue steadfastly investing in AI, in LLMs and generative AI in particular during the upcoming quarters.

In March, Baidu rolled out its LLM and Chinese-language ChatGPT alternative, Ernie Bot, which can be used for a variety of functions, including searches, autonomous driving and smart devices.

In addition, Apollo Go, Baidu's autonomous ride-hailing service, provided around 714,000 rides in the second quarter, up 149 percent year-on-year. As of June 30, the cumulative rides provided to the public by Apollo Go reached 3.3 million.