Chinese search giant Baidu Inc announced its plans to establish a venture capital fund worth 145 million USD to support startups that specialize in content generated by artificial intelligence applications. Additionally, the company revealed its intention to initiate a competition for developers to create applications based on its ERNIE large language model (LLM) or integrate the model into their existing products. This move by Baidu comes in response to the rapid development and popularity of AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT, created by OpenAI and backed by Microsoft, prompting various Chinese tech companies to introduce their own LLMs.

Nearly 80 organizations in China have introduced their own large language models (LLMs) since 2020, surpassing the number of releases in the United States this year. In March, Baidu unveiled its AI-powered LLM called Ernie Bot, and it was swiftly followed by other Chinese companies, including e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. In light of the growing presence of LLMs, China released draft regulations in April outlining guidelines for the utilization of generative AI.

Movement of Baidu in the last five years. (Source: Trading Economics) *