South Korean media: Baidu fills the gap left by NVIDIA!
On December 11, South Korean media outlet "Today Digital" published an article stating that China's largest search engine, Baidu, has become an important player in the artificial intelligence chip market through its subsidiary Kunlun Xin. Analysts point out that due to U.S. sanctions causing a disruption in the supply of NVIDIA chips in the Chinese market, Kunlun Xin has filled this gap and formed a fierce competitive landscape with Huawei.
Baidu recently announced a five-year development roadmap for the Kunlun AI chip, planning to launch M100 and M300 chips in 2026 and 2027, respectively. Currently, the Ernie AI model is running in data centers, using a hybrid solution of self-developed chips and NVIDIA chips, and generating revenue through chip sales and cloud leasing.
Earlier this year, Baidu also secured a major order from a supplier of China's largest telecom operator, China Mobile, demonstrating its market competitiveness.
JPMorgan predicts that Baidu's chip business revenue will grow sixfold by 2026, reaching 8 billion yuan; Macquarie analysts believe the valuation of the Kunlun chip division is approximately 28 billion U.S. dollars. Deutsche Bank analysts pointed out that Kunlun Xin is the leading company in the field of high-performance AI chip development in China, with its chips mainly used for large-scale language model (LLM) training and cloud computing.
Baidu's chip expansion comes at a time when China is facing severe chip shortages, as high-end GPUs from NVIDIA are banned from being exported to China due to U.S. sanctions.
Alibaba CEO Wu Yongming predicted, "The shortage of chips required for data center construction will be the biggest challenge in the next two to three years."
Experts say, "The expansion of Baidu's chip business is both an inevitable move and an opportunity. Since Baidu cannot rely on U.S. GPUs, the launch of Kunlun chips not only solves Baidu's own supply issues but also makes it a strategic supplier for the entire Chinese AI industry."
Original: toutiao.com/article/1851212949987658/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author alone.