Baidu partners with Lenovo in third China AI smartphone deal

China’s Baidu has partnered with Lenovo to feature its generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology on Lenovo’s smartphones, in the latest team-up with a phone manufacturer as it seeks practical applications for its AI model.

A spokesperson for Beijing-based Baidu told Reuters this week that the partnership involves Lenovo using its Ernie large language model (LLM) and is similar to collaborations with Samsung and Honor announced last month.

Lenovo sells its own branded phones and also owns the phone brand Motorola. Ernie is already embedded in the browser and app store apps of Lenovo’s personal computers and tablets.

Lenovo did not respond to a request for comment.

Selling smartphones that offer generative AI features for services such as chatbots and real-time translation have become a new global trend after the technology became popularized in late 2022 with the launch of ChatGPT.

Google is seen to be a leader in AI smartphones with its Pixel phones and robust cloud-based AI while Apple has been reported to be working to bring generative AI models to the iPhone.

Research firm Canalys expects that 5% of smartphones shipped globally in 2024, or 60 million devices, will be AI-capable smartphones.