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Apr 18, 2024 • 4 min read

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China’s Leading AI Chatbot:

Baidu announced on Tuesday that its artificial intelligence chatbot, Ernie Bot, now has over 200 million users, maintaining its lead as China's most popular AI chatbot amidst growing competition. The user base has roughly doubled since December, just eight months after its public release. Robin Li, Baidu's CEO, revealed these figures at a conference in Shenzhen, highlighting that the chatbot’s application programming interface (API) is now being used 200 million times daily.
Ernie Bot, first introduced in March last year, was among the first locally developed ChatGPT-like chatbots in China and gained regulatory approval for public use in August. China requires AI services to obtain official approval before launch, reflecting tighter control compared to other countries. Baidu began monetizing Ernie in February, with significant revenue contributions from AI-enhanced ad services and partnerships with other companies to develop their models.
However, competition is intensifying domestically with Moonshot AI's Kimi, a chatbot from an Alibaba-backed startup is rapidly gaining momentum. According to AIcpb.com, which tracks online AI service usage, Kimi's visits surged by 321.6% in March, showing faster growth than Ernie Bot’s 48% increase in the same period. Globally, Chinese AI services are still trailing behind Western alternatives, with OpenAI’s ChatGPT leading as the most popular generative AI service worldwide.

Cisco Acquired Isovalent:

Cisco, a global leader in IT, networking, and cybersecurity solutions, has acquired Isovalent, Inc., known for its pioneering work in open source cloud-native networking and security. This acquisition, announced on April 12, enhances Cisco's capabilities in securing multicloud environments. Isovalent is recognized for its contributions to eBPF technology and the development of cloud-native tools like Cilium and Tetragon, which optimize networking and security in cloud setups.
Isovalent's expertise will now be integrated into the Cisco Security Cloud, an AI-driven, cloud-delivered security platform that offers advanced threat protection across various cloud environments. This platform is tailored to support organizations of all sizes, ensuring comprehensive security. The addition of Isovalent's team to Cisco's Security Business Group is expected to accelerate innovation in cloud-native security solutions, reinforcing Cisco's commitment to supporting and developing open source communities like eBPF, Cilium, and Tetragon. This move follows Cisco's strategic path of enhancing its product offerings through acquisitions, notably including the recent acquisition of Splunk, which has expanded Cisco's data analytics/cyber capabilities.

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