Shares of Chinese tech giant Baidu (BIDU) (HK:9888) rallied nearly 10% to a near three-year high on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange following the official release of its Ernie 5.0 AI model. Baidu claims Ernie 5.0 surpasses leading global AI models like Alphabet (GOOGL) Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro and OpenAI’s GPT-5, especially in reasoning, comprehension, and handling complex tasks.
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The Nasdaq-listed shares hit a new 52-week high of $165.30, extending the prior day’s 8.2% surge. On January 20, Baidu announced that its AI assistant, powered by its Ernie large language model (LLM), has now surpassed 200 million monthly active users (MAUs), suggesting rapid adoption of its generative AI ecosystem. Additionally, its Apollo Go robotaxi service officially began commercial operations in Abu Dhabi, marking a big step in Baidu’s global expansion of autonomous driving technology.
Baidu Cloud Is the Core Driver of Long-Term Growth
Baidu launched the Wenxin Big Model 5.0, aka Ernie 5.0, at an AI-focused conference in Shanghai. The model is now available on Baidu’s cloud platform and represents a major advance in multimodal AI. It uses native full-modal modeling to seamlessly process text, images, audio, and video. With a massive 2.4 trillion parameters, it ranks among the most powerful LLMs on the market today.
The release sparked fresh investor optimism, underscoring Baidu’s rising dominance in China’s booming AI market and its bold push to rival global leaders. Baidu first unveiled the model in November 2025, drawing a similar positive response.
Over the past two years, Baidu has ramped up AI investments, targeting foundational models, cloud services, and practical enterprise uses. Ernie 5.0’s launch cements the company’s leadership in China’s AI sector, while establishing it as a formidable global player in cutting-edge AI tech.
Is Baidu Stock a Buy Now?
Analysts remain highly optimistic about Baidu’s long-term prospects. On TipRanks, BIDU shares have a Strong Buy consensus rating based on 10 Buys and two Hold ratings. The average Baidu price target of $164.81 implies 1.6% upside potential from current levels. Over the past year, BIDU shares have surged nearly 96%.
