Chinese tech giant Alibaba pledged additional resources in order to accelerate development of foundational AI models, after a third top executive left the company amid signs the country’s technological push is facing obstacles.
Lin Junyang’s departure followed remarks he made in January arguing Chinese firms were unlikely to catch up to American rivals because they were “stretched thin just meeting delivery demands.”
Separately, Baidu, struggling to generate growth from its hefty AI investments, last week reported a 42% fall in quarterly profit. The news points to a dissonance between headlines about the ostensibly relentless march of Chinese AI firms and the challenges those firms face. “If China AI is so great,” one Bloomberg columnist wrote, “why aren’t its tech stocks?”
