Published: January 17th, 2024,
Last updated: May 28th, 2025

Technology company Baidu has denied a newspaper report linking its AI chatbot Ernie to Chinese military research. On Friday, the South China Morning Post quoted a scientific paper from an institution working with the People’s Liberation Army’s cyber warfare department. According to the paper, China’s military AI is currently using commercial language models for the first time in order to learn more about people. Following the report, Baidu shares fell significantly in value.