Baidu adopts DeepSeek AI models, chasing Tencent in race to embrace the hot start-up

Name: Does the arrival of China’s low-cost DeepSeek mean the end of Nvidia’s chip dominance?
Uploaded: 2025-02-17T09:00:07.000Z
Duration: 5 min
Description: Does the arrival of China’s low-cost DeepSeek mean the end of Nvidia’s chip dominance?

Baidu is integrating both DeepSeek and its own Ernie models into its search engine, after Tencent started trialling DeepSeek’s tech in WeChat search

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Baidu is integrating the AI models from DeepSeek into its search engine, along with its own Ernie models, as companies race to embrace the tech from the Hangzhou-based start-up that has captured the public imagination. Photo: Shutterstock

Iris Dengin Shenzhen

Published: 5:00pm, 17 Feb 2025

Chinese technology giant Baidu is embracing DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence (AI) models by integrating it with its search engine, fast on the heels of Tencent Holdings, which recently adopted the start-up’s tech into Weixin, the country’s largest social media platform.

Baidu will fully connect both DeepSeek and its own Ernie large language models (LLMs) with its search engine to offer a “more diversified search experience”, the company announced on Sunday.

The search giant will also add DeepSeek to its LLM platform for developers, Baidu said in a separate statement.

Baidu is embracing DeepSeek just after its rival Tencent announced beta testing of the AI models on its super app Weixin, as it calls WeChat in mainland China. Some users were given access to the DeepSeek-R1 model through Weixin’s search bar over the weekend, potentially widening the exposure of the popular Chinese AI models to the platform’s 1.3 billion active users. It is currently only being offered to mainland China accounts.

Baidu’s share price plunged around 8 per cent in afternoon trading in Hong Kong, marking its sharpest fall since last November. The company is slated to report its fourth quarter earnings on Tuesday.

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Does the arrival of China’s low-cost DeepSeek mean the end of Nvidia’s chip dominance?

Hangzhou-based DeepSeek has become the hottest AI start-up in China after making waves in the global tech community. News of two advanced models, V3 and R1, that were trained at a fraction of the cost of other leading models rocked Wall Street last month, sending AI-related stocks plummeting.