(Yicai) Nov. 13 -- Baidu is preparing to roll out its next-generation artificial intelligence chip, the Kunlun M100, next year, featuring further optimized performance. The Chinese tech giant also aims to release an even more powerful M300 chip for training and inference in 2027, the firm’s executive vice president said today.

Baidu's self-developed Kunlun P800 AI chip is already handling the vast majority of the company's inference tasks, Shen Dou, who is also president of the Baidu AI Cloud Group, said at the Baidu World conference in Beijing. A 5,000-card cluster using P800 chips has successfully trained a multimodal AI model and the firm is expanding the cluster to over 10,000 cards to train even larger models.

In addition to internal use, Baidu's Kunlun chips are already being applied in sectors such as internet finance, energy generation, transportation and education. The Beijing-based company has hundreds of real-world users, including big names such as China Merchants Bank, China Southern Power Grid, Geely Automobile Holdings and Vivo, as well as a major internet firm and a leading telecommunications operator, Shen said.

In August, Baidu’s AI servers powered by Kunlun chips won the bidding for a centralized procurement project held by China Mobile, marking a major step for the application of domestic AI chips in large-scale infrastructure projects.

Baidu began developing its own chips in 2011. In 2021, the business was spun off into an independent firm Kunlunxin (Beijing) Technology, which completed its first round of financing. Baidu currently holds a 59.45 percent stake in the company, according to business information platform Tianyancha.

Baidu’s share price [HKG:0988] jumped by as much as 3.5 percent today in intra-day trading, but closed down 0.08 percent at HKD126.20 (USD16.20).

Editors: Tang Shihua, Kim Taylor