• by Laurie Sullivan , 7 hours ago

China's top search engine, Baidu Inc., which competes with Google's parent Alphabet, has filed a Hong Kong initial public offering for its artificial-intelligence chip unit.

Kunlunxin -- Baidu's AI chip unit, which was founded in 2012 -- submitted its application as a "carve-out listing" to the exchange on Friday, though details like size and structure of the IPO have not been finalized. 

A carve-out listing separates the AI chip business from its parent to create a new entity with public shareholders via an IPO.

The unit was initially created to support the parent company's use of computing power to run its online business, but now the hope is it will lead in the country's push for AI dominance. 

Baidu expects the chip unit will raise its profile among existing and potential customers, suppliers and potential partners, so it could gain more business and tap equity and debt capital markets for funding.

Kunlunxin powers Ernie, Baidu’s AI large language models used for search results similar to Google Gemini. Its third-generation P800 chips handle the vast majority of Baidu's inference search retrieval tasks.

The company stated that it has become more cost-effective -- and has lowered advertising costs for brands -- to use self-developed hardware instead of expensive, restricted foreign GPUs, to power Baidu’s AI-powered search features critical for its advertising revenue.

Kunlunxin also supports processing for Baidu’s new suite of AI tools that allow advertisers to create AI-generated images and marketing copy from simple text prompts.

SpaceX and Anthropic could file for IPOs this year, as these company’s founders look for more funding, according to MarketWatch.

Elon Musk has already hinted that SpaceX could make its public debut. His company reportedly just conducted a tender offer that valued it at $800 billion.

Anthropic -- maker of the Claude chatbot -- has not had trouble raising funds as a private company that reportedly led to a recent $350 billion valuation, according to CNBC, but with the need for power and computing resources, it’s expected the company will look for funds in a new way.