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In anticipation of rising tech tensions between the US and China, leading Chinese technology companies have been amassing high-performance graphic processing units (GPUs), especially those from Nvidia, to ensure their AI development projects remain uninterrupted.
Strategic Moves by Tech Titans
Companies like Baidu, ByteDance, Tencent, and Alibaba have been proactive in securing these essential AI components. According to the Financial Times, these firms collectively placed orders for around 100,000 A800 processors from Nvidia, scheduled for delivery this year, in a deal worth approximately $4 billion. Furthermore, they have also committed to buying $1 billion worth of GPUs for 2024 delivery.
Baidu's CEO, Robin Li, during an earnings call, highlighted the company's readiness with enough AI chips to support its ChatGPT-like Ernie Bot for the next one or two years. He acknowledged that while inference tasks need less powerful chips, their current reserves and other alternatives should suffice for various AI-native applications for end-users.
Impact on AI Development Pace
Li also noted that difficulties in acquiring the most advanced chips could slow AI development in China. This has led Baidu and other tech giants to actively seek alternatives to Nvidia's GPUs.
AI's Bold Move in the LLM Market
Despite these challenges, there are success stories like 01.AI, established by renowned investor Kai-Fu Lee. The company managed to acquire a significant number of high-performance inference chips and has already cleared its debts after securing a valuation of $1 billion. This showcases that startups, with the right funding, can still make impactful entries into the large language model (LLM) market.
Baidu's Continued Advancements
With its GPU reserve, Baidu recently launched Ernie Bot 4. Li claimed this model is comparable in capability to GPT-4, underscoring Baidu's competitive stance in the AI industry.
Chinese tech giants are strategically stocking up on Nvidia GPUs to maintain their AI development momentum amid escalating US-China tech tensions.
