Baidu Says Its AI as Good as ChatGPT in Big Claim for China

Baidu's founder Robin Li declared his company's large language model has finally caught up with OpenAI's advanced GPT-4, claiming the lead in his country's race to develop AI that can rival the US. From a report: The billionaire took the stage in Beijing Tuesday to run Ernie 4.0 through a Q&A designed to showcase its ability to provide answers and solve complicated puzzles on the fly. Ernie has matched OpenAI's seminal product in terms of sophistication and general capabilities, Li told a packed house at a converted steel mill that now serves as an auditorium. The marquee Ernie chatbot now surpassed 45 million users -- a milestone that still lags ChatGPT's estimated 180 million, though the US bot launched months earlier. China's search leader, often referred to as a homegrown equivalent to Google, is pinning its hopes on AI to help it surpass rivals from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to Tencent that control the rest of the internet. Baidu is leading a wave of aggressive investment across China after ChatGPT demonstrated the disruptive potential of generative AI -- which can craft video and content from simple commands. It's regarded as a leader in a race with local big tech firms and scores of startups to create a next-generation platform for the world's biggest internet market. They're trying to compete with American names from Microsoft to Google to create services like ChatGPT and Dall-E, but US sanctions on Chinese access to the most advanced chips to train and run AI models, coupled with Beijing's stringent censorship, could cloud their prospects. Washington is tightening curbs on shipments of AI chips to the country, stoking that uncertainty. "Ernie is not inferior in any respect to GPT-4," Li told the audience.

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