China’s Baidu soars 16% to hit 2-year highs as company secures AI partnership, launches debt sale
By Dylan Butts
Copyright cnbc
Chinese tech giant Baidu saw its shares in Hong Kong soar nearly 16% on Wednesday as the company ramps up its artificial intelligence plans and partnerships.
Shares in the Beijing-based firm, which holds a dominant position in China’s search engine market, had gained nearly 8% overnight in U.S. trading.
The strong stock performance comes after Baidu earlier this week secured an AI-related deal with China Merchants Group, a major state-owned enterprise, focused on transportation, finance, and property development.
“Both sides plan to focus on applications of large language models, AI agents and ‘digital employees,’ vowing to make scalable and sustainable progress in industrial intelligence based on real-life business scenarios,” according to Baidu’s statement translated by CNBC.
Baidu has been aggressively pursuing its AI business, which includes its popular large language model and AI chatbot Ernie Bot.
As it seeks to gain an edge in China’s competitive AI space, the company on Tuesday disclosed a 4.4 billion yuan ($56.2 million) offshore bond offering. This follows a $2 billion bond issuance back in March.
Other Chinese AI players, such as Tencent, have also been raising funds, including via debt sales this year, to support the billions being poured into their AI capabilities.
