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Facing roadblocks, China’s robotaxi darlings apply the brakes
A few years ago, robotaxis were the darlings of venture capitalists in China. A cadre of audacious startups, including Deeproute.ai, WeRide.ai, Pony.ai and Momenta reeled in hundreds of millions of dollars to fuel their costly ambitions. With pockets overflowing, they spent generously on building self-driving vehicle fleets. Their geeky executives, swapping T-shirts for sharp suits,…
In August last year, a ban on Nvidia’s chip export to China sent the country’s budding artificial intelligence startups scrambling for alternatives. A momentary sense of relief came when Nvidia…
Chinese users can finally try their homegrown ChatGPT equivalents
One month after China announced its provisional measures to oversee generative artificial intelligence, the country has granted approval to the first batch of large language model-empowered services for public use.…
The U.S.-China decoupling is giving rise to a divided tech landscape between the two major economies, shaping the development of the red-hot area of generative AI, which turns text into…
As part of AI push, Chinese tech giant Baidu is now rolling out an AI venture fund
Here comes yet more money for AI startups. Today, the Chinese search giant Baidu announced that it plans to establish a venture fund with 1 billion yuan ($145 million) to…
Self-driving cars are taking ages to become a reality, but they won’t take forever
My dream of never having to drive again is far from dead. I just need to add five or 10 years to my prior timelines.
Following on the heels of GPT-4’s buzzy debut and the announcement of Microsoft 365’s AI makeover, Baidu, China’s search engine giant, introduced its Ernie Bot. Since ChatGPT blew the world…
Baidu to deploy conversational AI across search, in-car entertainment and more
Baidu today revealed more details about its much-anticipated intelligent Ernie Bot, widely seen as the search giant’s counterpart to ChatGPT. Ernie Bot is built atop Baidu’s large language model Ernie…
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Amid ChatGPT frenzy, a hundred followers bloom in China
Technological breakthroughs in the U.S. never fail to inspire challengers, followers and opportunists in China. It’s ChatGPT’s turn to capture the imagination of the world’s largest internet population. On WeChat, ChatGPT’s “trending index,” an indicator of a keyword’s popularity on the social network, rose 155 folds within the last 30 days. It’s fascinating to watch…
Baidu, China’s top search engine provider and robotaxi developer, is apparently working on its own counterpart to ChatGPT. The news, first reported by Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal, sent…
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How China is building a parallel generative AI universe
The gigantic technological leap that machine learning models have shown in the last few months is getting everyone excited about the future of AI — but also nervous about its uncomfortable consequences. After text-to-image tools from Stability AI and OpenAI became the talk of the town, ChatGPT’s ability to hold intelligent conversations is the new…
Baidu starts offering nighttime driverless taxis in China
Baidu, the Chinese internet giant that became known for its search engines, is making some big strides in autonomous driving. Starting this week, the public can ride its robotaxis in…
SoftBank, Sequoia China back this ERP startup enabling China’s online exporters
Thanks to cross-border e-commerce platforms, China continues to be a major exporter of consumer goods for the world in the online shopping age. It’s not just marketplaces like Amazon and…
TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is making some pretty heavy bets on the healthcare space as it acquired Amcare, which runs high-end children’s and women’s hospitals across China. The buyout cost…
Baidu to operate fully driverless commercial robotaxi in Wuhan and Chongqing
Chinese internet giant Baidu has secured permits to offer a fully driverless commercial robotaxi service, with no human driver present, in Chongqing and Wuhan via the company’s autonomous ride-hailing unit,…
China’s Jaka Robotics fueled by Saudi Arabia’s Prosperity7 in global push
Jaka Robotics, a Chinese startup that makes collaborative robots, has just pulled in a hefty Series D funding round of over $150 million from a lineup of heavyweight investors to…
Daily Crunch: Cartona will use $12M Series A to expand its Egypt-based, B2B e-commerce platform
Happy new week! Christine went on a well-deserved break, so you’ll have to deal with a double dose of my awful puns and worse headline shenanigans for a bit.
Real driverless cars are now legal in Shenzhen, China’s tech hub
There are plenty of autonomous driving vehicles testing on the roads of Shenzhen today: Pony.ai, Baidu, DeepRoute, AutoX, you name it. But these vehicles are not really the unmanned vehicles…
Baidu reveals the next-gen robotaxi that will be deployed throughout China
Baidu, the Chinese search engine giant that has plowed money into AI and autonomous vehicle technology, unveiled Wednesday a new all-electric robotaxi that it plans to deploy at scale across…
China’s $1B fine on Didi could end the mobility giant’s troubled year
Didi, the Chinese ride-hailing behemoth that has undergone a year of regulatory overhaul, faces a fine of over 8 billion yuan ($1.28 billion) from the country’s authorities, The Wall Street…
After flagging concerns over the financial risks associated with non-fungible tokens, some of China’s authorities are putting forward guidance on how to best make use of the novel technology. The…
The future of non-fungible tokens is getting more clarity in China as the country’s tech giants come together to formulate standards for the nascent industry. The China Cultural Industry Association,…
In mid-April, a group of industry associations in China issued a warning against the potential financial risks of non-fungible tokens, digital assets that represent real-world objects or intangible goods like…
Baidu, Pony.AI win first driverless robotaxi permits in China
Chinese internet giant Baidu and autonomous vehicle company Pony.ai have received permits to provide driverless ride-hailing services to the public on open roads in Beijing, according to both companies. To…
China’s work automation startup Laiye raises $160M, acquires France’s Mindsay
An ambitious Chinese startup wants a slice of the flourishing global work automation market. Laiye, a Beijing-based company that provides a one-stop platform for automating office tasks of varying degrees…
Cocos Technologies, a China-based game engine provider that has been around since 2010, just announced it has picked up $50 million in a Series B funding round in a bid…
China’s Zhiyi Tech raises $100M to help fashion brands predict bestsellers
In China, livestreaming promotion is emerging as a popular way for brands and influencers to reach consumers, challenging the traditional e-commerce model where users browse static pictures, read reviews and…
China’s augmented reality startup Nreal is on a roll. The company, which hopes to bring AR to the masses by making bright-color, lightweight smart glasses, has just received $60 million in…
China’s microblogging giant Weibo faces delisting risks in US
U.S. regulators have hastened their pace to enforce a law that could delist Chinese companies of which accounting papers can’t be inspected. The addition of Weibo, the Twitter equivalent of…
China’s EV chassis maker PIX raises $11M to build its own smart vehicles
The autonomous driving industry in China has enjoyed a boom over the past two years, with both institutional and corporate investors pouring money into a driverless future. Companies thriving in…
