Today, Baidu demonstrated how its latest AI innovations will transform and improve transportation, industry and daily life at its annual flagship technology conference, Baidu World 2021. From a robocar reveal and a rebranded robotaxi mobile platform to Xiaodu’s first smart TV and the 2nd generation Kunlun AI chip, Baidu showcased how AI will permeate our daily lives and bring about new, improved experiences.
Baidu’s mission is to make the complicated world simpler through technology. Speaking on how Baidu is doing this with AI, Baidu Co-founder and CEO Robin Li said, “AI is the combination of technology and feeling. The value of the technology is that everyone can feel the changes brought by it.”
Key highlights from the event that demonstrated transformational experiences as a result of AI include:
- A new era of autonomous driving – CEO Robin Li unveiled his vision for mobility of the future – a robocar. This robocar, which has L5 autonomous driving capabilities, will be more like an intelligent robot: it will move, it will communicate, and it will learn. Alongside the robocar, Baidu announced a new Luobo Kuaipao robotaxi mobile platform, which aims to commercialize autonomous driving, making hailed autonomous vehicles accessible to the broader public. Together, these announcements demonstrate how the Baidu Apollo intelligent driving program is forging the way towards the era of autonomous driving 2.0 – shifting from technical verification to large-scale operation.
- Xiaodu’s new smart products – Xiaodu announced its first smart TV – the Xiaodu Smart UHD TV V86 – complete with an 86-inch 4K ultra-HD screen, AI-powered voice control and gesture recognition to bring users an upgraded smart TV experience as smart TVs becoming more prevalent in today’s households. Xiaodu also announced the TIANTIAN Rotating Smart Display T8, Xiaodu Active Noise Canceling Intelligent Headphones Pro, its first active noise-cancelling headset, and a Xiaodu Intelligent Dictionary Pen.
- AI-powered search with Baidu APP – Baidu demonstrated onstage how AI technology powers speech recognition search on its Baidu APP, which has 580 million monthly active users. The demonstration showed that despite the length of query or mixing Chinese and English language and dialects, the application delivered results with 98% accuracy.
- Upgrading industries with AI technology – Baidu AI Cloud has seen strong growth, growing 71% year over year as reported in Baidu’s Q2 2021 Earnings Report. This is due, in part, to Baidu’s ability to create and execute on more efficient solutions across a variety of industries including manufacturing, energy and city management. At Baidu World, the company featured projects with partners across China including Quanzhou Water Utility Brain, Suzhou Industrial Park, and Lijiang City Brain.
- Baidu Brain 7.0 – Baidu CTO Haifeng Wang announced the latest version of Baidu Brain, which is differentiated from the 6.0 version by its powerful innovation integration – of knowledge and deep learning, hardware and software, cross-modal and multi-technology fusion, and technology and scenario application fusion – and its reduced threshold for developers to learn the AI platform, enabled by PaddlePaddle.
- 2nd Generation Kunlun AI Chip – Baidu announced the mass production of the 7nm Kunlun II AI chip, which delivers 2-3x more performance over the previous generation, with a max power consumption of 120W. As the hardware engine of Baidu Brain, Kunlun supports all types of algorithms including speech, vision, natural language processing and intelligent recommendation.
Baidu World 2021 was an opportunity to demonstrate Baidu’s vision of how AI will impact, transform and improve the daily lives of people around the world – from smart transportation to smarter homes to intelligent industrial applications. Each year, Baidu aims to make AI solutions more accessible, smarter and more efficient, and encourage the adoption of AI technologies across the spectrum as it continues to innovate for the future.
To see the recording of the conference with English translation, please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPjJqofYx7g
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