Baidu says Chinese buyers want local AI chips due to ‘supply chain’ issues

Chinese web giant Baidu yesterday told investors it sees good days ahead for its Kunlunxin chip biz, because local buyers won’t have alternatives. Baidu has previously said it plans to spin out and float Kunlunxin, which makes CUDA-compliant inferencing chips that it uses for its own cloud services and has sold to the likes of Huawei and ZTE, who use them in kit they sell to Chinese telcos. Speaking on the company’s Q2 earnings call, Dou Shen, executive veep of Baidu’s AI Cloud