Driven by the wave of artificial intelligence, the tech industry is undergoing unprecedented transformation.
A year ago, Baidu, as a leading company in the field of science and technology, took the lead among the world's largest manufacturers to release Wenxin Yiyan, a large-scale model product that benchmarks ChatGPT, and opened it to the whole society. A year later, Baidu led the intelligent development of China's thousands of industries with its leading AI technology innovation and patents, and took the lead in opening the era of "everyone is a developer and creator".
On April 25, during the National Intellectual Property Publicity Week, Baidu held a forum on "Patent Application Empowering the High-quality Development of the AI Industry". According to the latest "Baidu Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Patent White Paper 2024" released at the forum, the white paper shows that by the end of 2023, Baidu has applied for 19,308 applications and authorized 9,260 in the field of artificial intelligence, ranking first in China for six consecutive years, and leading the industry in patent quality.
Large models are shifting from exploring the boundaries of capabilities to industrial implementation, and directly creating value through applications. Baidu has launched a series of AI-native applications based on its own business, such as Wenxin Yiyan App, Baidu New Search, Baidu Library, Baidu AI Native Map and other products, and at the same time, through intelligent cloud and autonomous driving platforms, it has promoted the application of large-scale model technology in all walks of life. For example, in the fields of smart industry, smart finance, and autonomous driving, Baidu has a leading patent layout to support the large-scale application of innovative technologies and accelerate industry transformation.
Wang Haifeng, chief technology officer of Baidu, said that at present, the country is vigorously developing new quality productivity. The core of the new quality productivity is to promote industrial innovation with scientific and technological innovation, and artificial intelligence is an important driving force for a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, and it is the main position of the new quality productivity. Baidu has many years of technology accumulation and full-stack layout in the field of artificial intelligence, and since the release of Wenxin Yiyan on March 16 last year, it has continued to iteratively upgrade the Wenxin model, and the cumulative user scale of Wenxin Yiyan has exceeded 200 million, and the average daily call volume has also reached 200 million. We are the world's leading in the number of AI patent applications and authorizations based on large models, and the number of patent applications related to deep learning is the first in the world. At the same time, the industrial application of these patents continues to grow.
In the fields of AI large models, frameworks, and chips, Baidu's patents are in the leading position in China in terms of quantity and quality, forming a systematic patent layout and demonstrating strong AI basic core technology innovation capabilities.
In the wave of artificial intelligence, Baidu not only develops its own AI patented technology, but also leads a revolution on innovation and creation, and at the same time promotes new quality productivity with cutting-edge technology, opening up future market space for thousands of industries.
Demonstrating the power of innovation: Baidu is a global leader in generative AI technology and patents
In 2023, the domestic large model will show a state of a hundred flowers blooming and a hundred schools of thought contending, and a large number of upstart enterprises related to artificial intelligence technology will emerge at the same time.
Baidu has deployed artificial intelligence for many years and continues to innovate itself. In the past ten years, Baidu has invested nearly 170 billion yuan in technology research and development, and has maintained a very high proportion of research and development investment. Taking 2023 as an example, Baidu's core R&D investment will account for 21.67%.
With long-term and continuous R&D investment, Baidu has realized the full-stack layout of artificial intelligence, leading the way at all levels. Baidu's self-developed Wenxin model has become the most advanced and widely used AI basic model in China, covering multiple application scenarios, including code generation, education consulting, copywriting, legal consulting, painting, etc.
This achievement is also reflected in the patent portfolio. According to IFI Insights: Opening the Patent Picture on Generative AI released in February 2024 by IFIclaims, Baidu's generative AI patent applications ranked among the top 9 in the world, making it the only Chinese entity on the list.
According to the "Analysis Report on the New Generation of Artificial Intelligence Patent Technology" released by the National Industrial Information Security Development Research Center and the Electronic Intellectual Property Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in April 2024, in the field of new generation artificial intelligence technology, Baidu has 1,432 patent applications and 651 patent authorizations, occupying the top position in technological innovation and patent layout in this field. In the field of large models, Baidu leads the domestic innovation body with 869 patent applications and 371 patent authorizations, ranking first in the patent value index.
In addition to the R&D and innovation of patented technology, Baidu also explores the industrial application of generative AI technology with its own business. For many years, search engines have been one of the main ways for Internet users to obtain information, and as a technology company that started with search engine business, Baidu has been the first in the industry to complete the AI-native reconstruction of search products.
Its innovation is embodied in the ultimate satisfaction, recommendation stimulation, multi-round interaction 3 aspects, by summarizing the high-quality content of the whole network to meet the personalized user needs, at present, in the user's accurate Q&A needs, Baidu search in the first place can give satisfactory answers The proportion has increased nearly 1 times.
Baidu Wenku has also been fully reconstructed into a "one-stop AI content creation platform" under the empowerment of large models. Among them, intelligent comic creation, PPT one-click generation and other functions help many creators improve productivity and efficiency. Since the launch of Baidu's new AI function, the cumulative number of AI users has exceeded 100 million, and the cumulative number of function uses has exceeded 800 million.
In the application of thousands of industries, Baidu has also brought subversive effects to traditional products and traditional industries. At present, Baidu's patented AI technology has been applied in many fields such as industry, finance, medical care, and education, promoting the intelligent upgrading of multiple industries. For example, in the industrial sector, Baidu's AI technology has helped companies optimize and automate production processes, and in the financial sector, AI technology is being used for risk assessment and decision support.
In response to the white paper, Liang Zhixiang, senior vice president and general counsel of Baidu Group, said that industrialization is the vitality of patents, and based on the deep AI patent reserve, Baidu has built an open industrial intellectual property operation ecology to explore and expand patent cooperation. With the acceleration of patent industrialization, these patents are continuing to release value-added value, enabling the company's products and services to restructure, and helping the intelligent development of the industry.
Leading a new era: opening the era of "everyone creates".
With AI models and agents, Baidu is leading the AI industry into a new era.
From the perspective of the development of the artificial intelligence industry, vector databases and AI agents will become hot spots after AI large models. At the Baidu Create AI developer conference on April 19, Robin Li said that Baidu has paid high tuition fees for large models in the past year, stepped on countless pitfalls, and finally exchanged for Baidu's current three major focus directions, MoE, small models and agents.
Among them, as a hot topic in the field of artificial intelligence, agents are characterized by LLM or multimodal models as the core, which can have cross-application, active, self-upgrading and other characteristics, allowing machines to think and act like humans, complete complex tasks autonomously, and continue to learn and evolve in the environment. With the improvement of the capabilities of intelligent twins, a large number of new applications will continue to be born, becoming a more powerful all-round assistant for users.
Not long ago, He Junjie, senior vice president of Baidu Group and general manager of Baidu's mobile ecosystem business group, also announced that the Wenxin intelligent twin platform has gathered more than 50,000 developers and created more than 30,000 intelligent twins.
At present, Baidu has created business agents for many enterprise users, which can greatly reduce costs and increase efficiency, and more than 10,000 enterprises have created agents, covering more than 30 industries such as education and training, real estate and home furnishing, machinery and equipment.
Baidu also brings three AI development tools to developers around the world, namely AgentBuilder, an AI native application development tool, and ModelBuilder, a model customization tool of various sizes.
With the help of AgentBuilder, everyone can easily become an agent developer through the two agent development models of zero code and low code, and with the help of Baidu's ecological matrix distribution path, in multiple scenarios and multiple devices, the integrated empowerment of "development + distribution + operation + monetization" can be realized, and diversified benefits can be obtained, so as to jointly promote the development and application of agent technology and build the prosperity of the agent ecosystem.
From the perspective of Baidu's strategic layout, Baidu has only one core, that is, innovative applications, and has established a leading position in many key fields, and has taken the lead in entering a new era of AI native applications from the industry context.
epilogue
As Robin Li said at this year's AI Developer Conference, "Today's China has 1 billion Internet users, a strong basic model, enough AI application scenarios, the world's most complete industrial system, and the country is also vigorously encouraging and supporting the "artificial intelligence+" action. ”
Baidu's long-term plan is not only technological innovation, but also is committed to promoting the development of society in a more intelligent, efficient, fair and prosperous direction through the power of technology, and practicing the mission of "making the complex world simpler with technology" with continuous AI technology innovation.
Baidu is deeply engaged in the new generation of AI with large models as the core, promoting the deep integration of AI with thousands of industries, accelerating the process of industrial intelligence, lowering the threshold for AI application development, so that everyone can participate in the application, creation and development of AI, and let everyone become a developer and creator. This not only brings new opportunities for Baidu's own development, but also injects new vitality into the development of the entire AI industry, and leads the technological innovation of various industries, reshaping every corner and future of thousands of industries.
As artificial intelligence (AI) enters society with unprecedented power, Baidu will continue to work with global partners to create the next golden era of technology. Today, the era of "everyone can be a developer and creator" has arrived.