‘Too many’ AI models in China: Baidu CEO warns of wasted resources, lack of applications
Like much of the industry globally, China’s AI market is still in the early stages of monetisation. Baidu’s Li said that logistics and creative writing are two industries that have already benefited from AI-powered applications that improve efficiency.
Baidu Comate, the internet search giant’s coding assistant powered by its Ernie LLM, has been deployed internally for employee use. Li said 30 percent of coding at the company is now handled by AI.
“While our industry is a hot topic nowadays, it hasn’t reached its critical moment yet, because it has not yet penetrated any applications in any vertical industries that have caused widespread change,” Xu added.
MiniMax CEO Yan Junjie, who leads another one of China’s leading AI start-ups, said at the conference that he expects major industry consolidation in the future, with LLMs being primarily developed by just five companies.