2nd Global AI Summit to Kick off in Riyadh on Tuesday

The Second Global AI Summit will kick off in Riyadh on Tuesday.
The Second Global AI Summit will kick off in Riyadh on Tuesday.
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2nd Global AI Summit to Kick off in Riyadh on Tuesday

The Second Global AI Summit will kick off in Riyadh on Tuesday.
The Second Global AI Summit will kick off in Riyadh on Tuesday.

The Second Global AI Summit will kick off in Riyadh on Tuesday under the patronage of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of Board of Directors of the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA), reported the Saudi Press Agency.

Organized by SDAIA, the summit, “Artificial Intelligence for the Good of Humanity”, will witness the participation of more than 10,000 AI policymakers and specialists, senior government officials and major IT companies from around the world.

The event will be held between September 13 and 15.

It will tackle all aspects of AI, including the present, challenges and efforts to benefit from AI technologies.

Participants will provide various presentations that shed light on the latest research and innovations in the field, and exchange expertise and explore investment opportunities.

The summit will feature over 100 panel discussions and workshops.

It will highlight the impact of AI on top sectors, such as smart cities, capacity building, healthcare, transportation, energy, culture, environment, and economic mobility, with the aim of finding solutions to challenges and maximizing benefits from AI technologies.

The summit will witness the signing of more than 40 agreements and memorandums of understanding between the public and private sectors from Saudi Arabia and abroad.



China's Baidu Launches Two New AI Models as Industry Competition Heats Up

People walk past a Baidu logo outside the company headquarters in Beijing on February 2, 2024. (AFP)
People walk past a Baidu logo outside the company headquarters in Beijing on February 2, 2024. (AFP)
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China's Baidu Launches Two New AI Models as Industry Competition Heats Up

People walk past a Baidu logo outside the company headquarters in Beijing on February 2, 2024. (AFP)
People walk past a Baidu logo outside the company headquarters in Beijing on February 2, 2024. (AFP)

China's Baidu said on Sunday it has launched two new artificial intelligence models, including a new reasoning-focused model that it said rivalled DeepSeek's model, as it vies to stand out in a fiercely competitive AI race.

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek's roll-out of AI models which it says is on par with, or even better than, industry-leading models in the United States at a fraction of the cost, has roiled the industry and re-energized the global AI race.

"ERNIE X1 delivers performance on par with DeepSeek R1 at only half the price," Baidu said of one of the new models.

The X1 has "stronger understanding, planning, reflection, and evolution capabilities," Baidu said, adding that it is the first deep thinking model that uses tools autonomously.

Baidu said its latest foundation model ERNIE 4.5 has "excellent multimodal understanding ability. It has more advanced language ability, and its understanding, generation, logic, and memory abilities are comprehensively improved."

It also has "high EQ", and it is easy to understand network memes and satirical cartoons, Baidu said.

One of China's earliest tech giants to launch a ChatGPT-style chatbot, Baidu has struggled to gain widespread adoption for its Ernie large language model, despite claiming performance comparable to OpenAI's GPT-4, amid fierce competition.

Multimodal AI systems are capable of processing and integrating various types of data including text, video, images and audio, and can convert content across these formats.