Baidu chatbot hopes dashed – Verdict
The US has produced more generative AI patents by multiples of any other country or region in the world during the last year.
Chinese Big Tech company Baidu exceeded second-quarter revenue estimates on Tuesday (22 August) boosted by increasing advertising spending and its generative AI efforts.
Baidu’s revenue for the second quarter ending 30 June was 34.06 billion yuan ($4.67bn), compared with analysts’ estimate of 33.28 billion yuan ($4.56bn), according to Refinitiv.
Baidu has long been tipped as China’s leading hope of becoming competitive within the global generative AI market. But in March 2023, the company’s shares fell around 10 percent after a pre-recorded video of its AI chatbot Ernie was released – previously hailed as the country’s most credible ChatGPT rival. China’s sluggish economy and a lukewarm reception to Ernie threaten to hamper both China and Baidu’s generative AI ambitions.
Furthermore, according to research analyst GlobalData, the US by far and away leads the world on generative AI patents filed in the last year between August 2022 and August 2023. During this period, the US has filed 45,253 patents compared with China’s 9,055, according to the analyst.
Among the top corporate assignees for generative AI patents, Baidu ranked sixth with Samsung the corporate assignee to file the highest number of patents.
In the last year, the US has spawned a growing generative AI market starting with the runaway success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022 – the fasting growing app in history with 100 million new user accounts in its first week after launch.
US Big Tech has been quick to compete with Google’s Bard, Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI’s ChatGPT and integration of its Copilot generative AI tool into is suite of software offerings.
Venture funding for generative AI has also seen a massive surge following the rapid and unprecedented adoption of generative AI tools such as ChapGPT. According to GlobalData, there were 1,640 generative AI venture finance deals in 2023 from January to August, with a combined value of $22.28bn. Of those deals, Inflection AI’s $1.3bn capital raising was the largest deal with investors including Microsoft’s Bill Gates and NVIDIA included in the round.
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