Writer| Liu Huafang
ChatGPT is on fire, Microsoft is making a lot of money, Google Bard is humiliated, and China’s industry, the public and the media are focusing on Baidu.
On February 22, Beijing time, Baidu released its fourth quarter and full year financial reports, achieving annual revenue of 123.675 billion yuan, net profit of 20.68 billion yuan, revenue of 33.077 billion yuan and net profit of 5.371 billion yuan in the fourth quarter (a year-on-year increase of 32%). Baidu Core achieved four consecutive quarters of performance exceeding market expectations.
Robin Lee, founder, chairman and CEO of Baidu, said, “With its long-term investment in AI, Baidu will seize the upcoming AI inflection point and open up new opportunities for our entire business portfolio – from mobile ecology to intelligent cloud, automatic driving, intelligent hardware, etc.”
Baidu will launch the generative AI product “ERNIE Bot” in March, and plans to integrate many mainstream businesses with “ERNIE Bot”. It is reported that hundreds of well-known enterprises, media and institutions have signed up to access Wenxinyiyan. Once Baidu has launched its efforts, it will promote the “Wenxinyiyan” to the industrial opening and quickly form a developer ecosystem.
Robin Lee firmly believes that “China’s AI market is about to usher in explosive demand growth, and its commercial value will be released unprecedented and exponentially. As the best representative of China’s AI market’s long-term growth, Baidu is standing on the top of the tide.”
The word “Wenxin” is about to come out. The wave of AI era is surging. AI Cloud is unstoppable, and the rules of the cloud market have also changed fundamentally. Baidu AI Cloud provides “Wenxin Yiyan” external services, and brings AI benefits to the industrial economy. It will not only demonstrate its magical capabilities at the C end, but also generate technological change and epoch-making image power at the B end.
Productive AI+conversational AI, an expensive high-end track
The upcoming Baidu “Wenxin Yiyan” is a fusion innovation product of production-based AI+dialog-based AI. Relying on the Wenxin Big Language Model, it requires user dialogue data sets, reward models, etc., and requires large model training with hundreds of billions of parameters, which is very expensive, and the profit model is unknown. Most enterprises can’t afford to play even if they get the source code. This is not a conventional track, but a costly high-end track.
It is suggested that enterprises with poor family background and insufficient technology should not easily step into or follow up Baidu’s “Wenxin Yiyan”, otherwise, it is easy to have an embarrassing situation: they do not follow up, live well, and do it, but they may die.
Baidu has done a good job in the key technology fields such as the deep learning platform of flying oars and the big model of Wenxin, and has carried out industrialization and opening up. It has also launched the classic AIGC platform products of Wenxin Yige and Wenxin Baizhong. The launch of Wenxin Yiyan is not a follower product, but a product of the ecological evolution of Baidu Wenxin’s big model. It is more to follow the trend and will understand Chinese better.
Over the years, Baidu has been focusing on the R&D and industrialization of AI technology in an all-round way. In terms of technology investment density and capital investment intensity, Baidu ranks first in the world. Its investment is only a lot more than that of openAI, and it is more advanced in industrial penetration. In a word, Wenxin is not the whole of Baidu AI technology, but a feature of Baidu’s many AI strategic products.
Wenxin is built on Baidu AI Cloud, and will also output external capabilities through Baidu AI Cloud, covering Internet, media, finance, insurance, automobile, enterprise software and other industries. Nearly 300 leading enterprises have announced access to the ecosystem.
Robin Lee emphasized in the financial report letter that “when mankind entered the era of artificial intelligence, the technology stack of IT technology has undergone fundamental changes. In the past, it was basically divided into three layers: the chip layer, the operating system layer and the application layer. Now it can be divided into four layers: the chip layer, the framework layer, the model layer and the application layer.”
Baidu AI Cloud has the advantage of “integration of cloud and intelligence”, and in December 2022, it released the first full stack self-developed AI infrastructure “AI Big Base”, comprehensively upgrading 25 products and technologies, which are open to the whole society. In response to Wenxin’s statement, Baidu AI Cloud has provided four layers of full stack products, from cloud infrastructure to deep learning platform containing deep learning open source framework, to large-scale basic models and final applications, and has achieved one-step positioning and full stack opening.
Do not dispute the speed of words, layout the industrial opening
In the past decade, when blockchain, metauniverse, and NFT were booming, domestic enterprises and capital often swarmed together, but in the end, they were more lonely. So that netizens have formed a certain psychological inertia, and AI chat robots have become popular. Many people even think that this is a foam.
I can responsibly tell you that ChatGPT and Wenxin are not the Internet foam, but the epoch-making and inflection point AI innovation aggregators, which have great practical value and innovative productivity at both the C and B ends.
As the industry leader in the field of artificial intelligence, Baidu is a world-class player. It has been deeply involved in AI for many years. Its R&D investment is amazing, and its technical achievements are also the most advanced in China. In terms of quantum computing in cutting-edge technology, Baidu is in the leading position in the world. In August 2022, Baidu launched the superconducting quantum computer “Qianshi” and the world’s first full-platform quantum software and hardware integration solution “Quanxi”.
In the evaluation report of 2022 Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) AI Life Cycle Software Tools and Platform Suppliers released by IDC, Baidu became the only Chinese technology enterprise to enter the report with the help of the leading AI middle platform and AI development “dual platform”. In January 2023, IDC released the report “China’s Deep Learning Framework and Platform Market Share, 2022H2”, and Baidu ranked first in the comprehensive market share of China’s deep learning platform.
Standing at the top of the wave, Baidu is calm, more rational and pragmatic. Instead of taking the plunge like its old rival Google, it accelerates the opening of its technical capabilities to layout Wenxin, and relies on Baidu AI Cloud to carry out AI industry benefits, which can achieve the fission of industrial value in one step.
I believe that Baidu’s full stack of AI capabilities with an open mind will bring a productivity revolution to thousands of industries, and will produce innovations in many industrial scenarios, which will greatly enhance the industrial penetration of AI in China, so that China will not fall behind in the fourth industrial revolution of AI and achieve global leadership.
To follow the trend and speak quickly is nothing more than to grab the limelight and take advantage of the public opinion. This is a frequent occurrence in the Internet industry in the past, and it has made a lot of noise. However, there is often no following, and nothing can generate real long-term value. The consumer Internet has reached the ceiling, the industrial Internet and the industrial Internet have risen, and action is more important than words. Baidu Wenxin’s words about industrial openness are of great significance. Of course, openness is not only an attitude, but also an ability.
ChatGPT is on fire, and it is going to be closed source, which only enriches Microsoft. Even Aaron Musk, the co-founder of openAI, can’t stand it. In a word, Wen Xin is born open, and comes first. This is an opportunity Baidu has won for itself. Together, beauty and beauty will accelerate AI’s advanced productivity into thousands of industries. With the help of Baidu AI Cloud for open output, Wenxin’s words may have a subversive influence, which may have an industrial effect no less than that of “Baidu below” that year.
Overturn the game rules of cloud market, Baidu leads AI Cloud
The cloud selection is not out of date, coming for AI
The ability of Wenxin Yiyan will take the lead in content and information related industries and scenarios through Baidu AI Cloud, and hundreds of leading enterprises have access to the Internet, media, finance, insurance, automobile, enterprise software and other industries.
Undoubtedly, Wenxin’s words will drive Baidu AI Cloud’s industrial exposure, customer innovation, and AI product popularity, and make Baidu AI Cloud the “sexiest and smartest cloud” in the cloud service industry.
On February 17, at the 2023AI+Industrial Internet Summit Forum, Baidu AI Cloud officially announced that “Wenxin Yiyan” will provide services to the outside world through Baidu AI Cloud, bringing AI benefits to the industry.
Shen Shao, Executive Vice President of Baidu AI Cloud Group and President of Baidu Intelligent Cloud Business Group, said that “Wenxin Yiyan” is a big model based on Baidu AI Cloud technology, which will fundamentally change the game rules of the cloud market, and cloud services will leap from the digital era to the intelligent era.
In the past, enterprises chose cloud vendors more for basic cloud services such as computing power and storage, and more for low-dimensional cloud service consumption; Now and in the future, with the deepening of the digital revolution such as the digital society and the digital factory, the cloud demand of enterprises has increased. They will focus more on intelligent services, and will more evaluate whether the framework is good, whether the model is good, and even look at the level of framework coordination of model-frame-chip-application.
As human beings enter the era of artificial intelligence, the technology stack of IT technology has undergone fundamental changes. In the past, it was basically divided into three layers: chip layer, operating system layer and application layer. Now it can be divided into four layers: chip layer, framework layer, model layer and application layer. Baidu AI Cloud is equipped with a four tier technology stack of chips, frameworks, models and applications, achieving a full stack depth layout in the AI era, and has key self-developed technologies. In the intelligent era of cloud services, Baidu Smart Cloud has a comprehensive technological leadership.
By making good use of AI capabilities such as Wenxinyiyan, Qianxing Baiye will get great efficiency upgrades, scene experience upgrades, and AI simplification of interactive interfaces. Under the whims of developers, many new AI species may be born. For example, Baidu will open its ability of “Wen Xin Yi Yan” to small and concentrated cars, so it will have a better conversation experience and a more intelligent AI robot assistant in the two scenarios of intelligent home and intelligent travel.
In the field of AI public cloud services, Baidu AI Cloud’s market share has reached 28.1%, ranking first for four consecutive years, forming a unique advantage of “integration of cloud and intelligence”. At the same time, Baidu AI Cloud has the first digital human system in China – Baidu AI Cloud Xiling Platform, the world’s first independent meta universe rapid construction solution – “MetaStack, the base of the Greek meta universe”, and maintains the industry leadership in urban intelligent computing platform, financial cloud and many other fields.
As Shen Dou said, Wen Xin’s words will fundamentally change the game rules of the cloud market, and enterprises will focus more on the AI power of Gao Wei, leaping over the digital era based on cloud, and leaping to the intelligent era driven by AI.
The cloud service market has entered the real second half. Basic cloud services such as traditional computing and storage do not have much technical imagination and can only meet the conventional digital experience of enterprises and institutions. AI Cloud will bring a leap in productivity and interactive experience of industrial scenarios. If cloud services are compared to a person, traditional basic cloud services only address the instinctive physiological needs of eating, drinking, running, and jumping, while AI Cloud like Baidu AI Cloud will bring about evolutionary leaps in thought, intelligence, and soul.
AI Cloud is the protagonist in the second half of cloud service, because the competition between enterprises and industries is not a low-dimensional factor competition, but also a high-dimensional productivity and interaction reengineering. At the AI Cloud track, Baidu AI Cloud has always been in the leading position, with a full range of AI technology reserves, and is the “smartest cloud”. The appearance of Wenxin’s words will probably lead Baidu AI Cloud to a larger extent, and may shake off the pursuit and form a first rank position.
