Baidu Unveils New AI Chips as China Accelerates Tech Self-Sufficiency Efforts

By Sherry Qin and Tracy Qu

Baidu unveiled two artificial intelligence chips as Chinese tech giants ramp up their chip-making efforts amid China's push for technological self-sufficiency.

The Beijing-based company announced plans to launch the M100 chip in 2026, the company said at an annual developer event on Thursday.

The M100, designed by its chip unit Kunlunxin, is mainly used for large-scale inferencing. Additionally, Baidu is set to release the M300 chip, designed to focus on ultra-large scale model training and inference, in 2027.

Baidu's executive vice president Shen Dou said the company aims to provide "powerful and low-cost computing power" to help enterprises adopt AI capabilities.

As U.S.-China trade tensions evolve into a tech war, the U.S. government has imposed export restrictions on advanced semiconductors and chip-making equipment to China. In response, China has prioritized tech self-sufficiency in its next five-year economic plan.

Recently, Chinese authorities raised security concerns about Nvidia's popular AI chips, designed specifically for the Chinese market, and urged domestic tech companies to stop using them. This move has created opportunities for local chip designers to fill the void left by the U.S. chipmaker.

Baidu's chip announcements follow Huawei's surprise reveal of its AI chip pipeline in September. Huawei's lineup includes Ascend 950 chips, slated for release in 2026. These chips are capable of handling various AI workloads, using high-bandwidth memory units developed by Huawei, and support a computing format gaining traction among Chinese AI developers.

In August, The Wall Street Journal reported that Alibaba Group had also developed a new, more versatile chip than its earlier chips.

In addition to its new chips, Baidu introduced two supernode products designed to link chips together, functioning as a unified system to enhance computing power.

The company expects its Tianchi256 supernode to deliver a 50% better performance in serving AI systems compared to its previous clusters. The next-generation Tianchi512 is expected to offer even further development in performance.

Baidu, once China's dominant search engine provider, is now pivoting heavily into AI, autonomous driving and chip development as its core advertising business slows.

Kunlunxin, formerly the intelligent chip and architecture department within Baidu, became an independent company in 2021 with an initial valuation of around 13 billion yuan. In August, it secured a US$139 million chip order from state-owned telecommunications provider China Mobile for AI projects.

Baidu is scheduled to report its financial results next Tuesday.

Write to Sherry Qin at sherry.qin@wsj.com and Tracy Qu at tracy.qu@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 13, 2025 06:25 ET (11:25 GMT)