Competing with the US, China will launch a series of new AI applications. Illustration photo. (Source: Time)

On August 31, Chinese Internet giant Baidu launched its own conversational robot. Currently only available in the Chinese market, Ernie Bot is China's answer to the American ChatGPT application. A series of new applications born from AI are also about to hit the market.

Reply to American chatbot

Ernie Bot is now available for download from app stores or Baidu's website. Like its main competitor, ChatGPT, users can ask Ernie Bot questions or prompt Ernie Bot to write market analysis, come up with marketing slogan ideas, and document summaries…

Ernie Bot is available globally, the company said, but users need a Chinese number to register and log in. The Baidu app is available on the US Android and iOS app stores, but only in Chinese.

Baidu also opened a plug-in marketplace for Ernie Bot. The company said Ernie Bot surpassed 1 million users in the first 19 hours since its launch.

In addition to Ernie Bot, the company said in an emailed statement that it plans to launch “a new suite of AI-native applications that allow users to fully experience the four core capabilities of general AI: understanding, creation, reasoning, and memory.”

Baidu co-founder and CEO Robin Li noted that the company will be able to collect “highly valuable feedback from humans in the real world” to improve its platform model, also known as Ernie, and bring more innovations to Ernie Bot.

Baidu and other companies must submit security assessments to the government and demonstrate compliance with China's general AI principles before launching commercially, Reuters reported.

Other companies licensed by the Chinese government include SenseTime, Baichuan Intelligence Technology, Zhipu AI and MiniMax.

According to China’s general AI guidelines, companies must “adhere to the core values ​​of socialism” and all training data for platform models must come from sources deemed legitimate by the government.

Time for European action?

The Tortoise Global AI Index, which rates countries by their level of AI investment, innovation, and deployment, finds that Ernie Bot's arrival on the market marks a major step forward in China's goal of becoming the world leader in AI by 2030.

Meanwhile, according to Professor Axel Legay, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Louvain (UC Louvain), this is the time for Europe to act as the "locomotive" of the European economy, Germany, ranks eighth in the Tortoise index, while the UK ranks fourth.

Professor Axel Legay asserted that Europe clearly has the ability to compete with economic powerhouses in the field of AI. According to him, the development of AI in Europe can be promising but requires coordination between countries in this region.