Baidu Unveils M100 and M300 AI Chips to Challenge Nvidia's Dominance in China
Summary
Baidu launches M100 and M300 AI chips set to debut in 2026 and 2027 respectively, directly challenging Nvidia's market dominance as China pushes for technological independence with domestic processors promising over 50% performance improvements.
Key Points
- Baidu unveils two new AI chips, the M100 for inference efficiency (launching early 2026) and M300 for training large multimodal models (launching 2027), as part of China's technological self-sufficiency drive
- The chips aim to provide 'powerful, low-cost and controllable AI computing power' to reduce China's reliance on imported processors like Nvidia's, joining domestic competitors including Huawei's Ascend chips
- Baidu plans to cluster its chips into Tianchi256 and Tianchi512 systems, with the latter integrating 512 chips and expected to deliver over 50% performance gains for AI systems