Visitors learn about a product based on AI image recognition technology at the 5th World Voice Expo in Hefei, east China's Anhui Province, Nov. 17, 2022. The 5th World Voice Expo and Global 1024 Developer Festival kicked off here on Thursday. Photo: Xinhua

Chinese media thepaper.cn said on Tuesday that it will connect to Baidu's ERNIE bot, a move marking a fresh foray for the ChatGPT-like technology's application in the media industry as ChatGPT hype hits fever pitch in China recently.

The Shanghai-based news portal is a digital newspaper owned and run by the state-owned Shanghai United Media Group (SUMG).

Apart from The Paper, Baidu told the Global Times that its artificial intelligence voice assistant Xiaodu Technology, has also joined the ERNIE bot ecosystem and will be supported by the leading AI innovation. 

"We welcome more friends to join Baidu's ERNIE bot ecosystem, and become the first group to try out Baidu's leading intelligent dialogue technology achievements, and create a full range of content ecological AI products and services," Baidu said.

Baidu is expected to launch its ERNIE Bot in March, making it the first among Chinese players joining a global race in the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot rush after OpenAI's ChatGPT prompted global attention.

"ERNIE is running a sprint before finally going online," Baidu told the Global Times on Tuesday.

The global buzz around ChatGPT - though not available in China yet - has hit fever pitch in China, shoring up stocks in AI-related listed firms and prompted a flurry of local companies, ranging from Alibaba, JD.com to smaller players, announce their rival projects.

It's not clear how the news website will connect with the bot, but an early layout in the application end will help firms obtain more data, and obtain feedback from users, industry observers said.

Amid the nationwide frenzy over the AI bot, the capital city Beijing on Monday said it will support leading enterprises in building large AI models that may challenge ChatGPT.

In a statement, the city vowed to support key firms to invest in building an open-source framework and accelerate the supply of basic data.

Global Times