Chinese internet giant Baidu said its core business saw declining profits in the fourth quarter as online marketing revenue growth slowed even as its AI cloud business grew.

Baidu and CATL will work together to develop driverless vehicles and business models, using CATL's technology. Baidu's robotaxi service has reached 1.1 million paid rides.

China’s technology stocks slumped Wednesday after a brief bull run earlier in the week. Alibaba’s Hong Kong-traded stock fell 1.03%, while search engine giant Baidu fell 2.11% after it reported a 2% drop in revenue for its fourth quarter compared to a year earlier as artificial intelligence rivalry heats up in China.

Chinese search engine group Baidu , said on Tuesday that the success of AI company DeepSeek had inspired it to embrace an open source model, under which the source code of its upcoming generative AI chatbot release will be publicly available.

Baidu could see further gains thanks to its advancements in AI—including Ernie Bot and self-driving technology—and by being one of the few publicly traded companies

Asian equities were largely higher overnight despite the U.S. dollar strengthening overnight. Hong Kong led the push higher on very high volumes, the Philippines and Pakistan outperformed, while Mainland China underperformed after afternoon profit-taking.

Now, Baidu has finally bought the business, known as YY Live, after Beijing softened its stance towards the tech sector following a regulatory crackdown four years ago. JOYY had received about $1.86 billion in February 2021 as part of the original agreement and an additional cash of about $240 million on Tuesday.

Hong Kong stocks retreated from near a five-month high as a bull run in Chinese technology leaders hit technical barriers while search-engine operator Baidu slumped after reporting a decline in revenue.

Gary Black highlighted metrics from Baidu's autonomous driving, noting that the robotaxi service achieved 1.1 million paid rides in Q4.

The Hong Kong shares of Baidu plunged on Monday, wiping $2.4 billion off its market value, after the founder of the Chinese search engine giant was not spotted at a rare meeting between President Xi Jinping and corporate leaders.

Apple's leaning on companies including Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Baidu to adapt its artificial intelligence system to meet regulatory requirements, according to Bloomberg.