TNB Tech Minute: China’s Baidu Releases an AI Model to Challenge DeepSeek

WSJ Tech News Briefing

The Wall Street Journal

News, Tech News

4.6 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2025

⏱️ 2 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Plus, Elon Musk’s xAI is buying a startup that makes AI-generated videos. And Swedish fintech Klarna replaces Affirm as Walmart’s buy-now-pay-later provider. Victoria Craig hosts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Here's the truth about AI. AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into. Service Now puts AI to work for people across your business, removing friction and frustration for your employees, supercharging productivity for your developers, providing intelligent tools for your service agents to make customers happier, all built into a single platform you can
0:22.0	use right now. That's why the world works with ServiceNow. Visit ServiceNow.com
0:27.9	slash UK slash AI for people. Here's your TNB Tech Minute for Monday, March 17th. I'm Victoria
0:35.3	Craig for the Wall Street Journal. Chinese tech giant Baidu has launched a new AI model that it says can do the same thing as its rival Deepseeks at half the price.
0:45.2	Baidu says its model Ernie X1 can complete advanced searches, generate AI images, and read webpages at a performance level on par with DeepSeek's AI.
0:55.8	DeepSeek created a market frenzy earlier this year after it claimed its AI model could
1:00.9	perform on par with an open AI chat GPT model.
1:05.0	Baidu will use its new AI model and other technologies in its consumer products, including
1:10.0	its AI chatbot, which it made free to use earlier than scheduled.
1:14.8	Staying in the world of artificial intelligence, Elon Musk's ex-AI, which has spent years trying to catch up to open AI,
1:22.8	is buying a four-person startup called hotshot.com.
1:26.9	The New York-based company allows users to make
1:29.2	life-like AI-generated videos. The acquisition allows Musk's company to integrate video into its
1:35.3	Grock chatbot, which is embedded in X. Elsewhere, Stockholm-based Klarna has replaced U.S.
1:41.7	rival a firm as Walmart's exclusive Buy Now Pay Later provider.
1:46.6	Klarna will work with Walmart-backed OnePay, a consumer finance app, to offer installment loans
1:51.9	ranging from three to 36 months. Customers will also maintain the ability to link payment cards
1:57.6	to the app for contactless purchases and get cash back on the things they buy.
2:02.4	Working with Walmart could be a win for Klarno, which last week filed to go public on the New York
2:06.8	Stock Exchange, although pricing hasn't been offered yet.
2:10.4	For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out tomorrow's Tech News Briefing podcast.

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