Baidu and Huawei announced they will merge their artificial intelligence (AI) technology at the Baidu Create 2019 AI Developer Conference on Wednesday, suggesting a more self-controlled AI era is on the horizon.

Baidu's open-source, homegrown deep learning (DL) framework PaddlePaddle will be powered by Huawei's Kirin smartphone chipsets, expanding AI computing capability, the company said.

As Baidu's answer to "Tensorflow," the Google-owned AI DL framework that powered AlphaGo, the PaddlePaddle supports over 70 machine learning models and AI products from the company, said Wang Haifeng, the company's CTO.

"The two tech companies could exert their advantages in software and hardware sector," added Wang. He emphasized that the collaboration with Huawei will provide strong computing power and accelerate commercial applications of AI.

In China, the DL framework is considered to be the operating system for the AI era as the technology — which features standardization, automation, and modularization — can be widely used in promoting the industrial production of AI applications, Wang said in an earlier speech.

The DL technology has been applied in various industries, which means competition is increasingly heating up.

Google and Facebook are among the U.S. tech giants throwing money behind DL frameworks, such as Tensorflow and PyTorch.

These titans are eager to attract as many developers as possible from around the world to their own platform. With more developers and partners on board, they are much more likely to have a say when setting future standards.

Baidu's move to catch up with those international competitors started in 2013, when the first DL institute was built. Three years later, the PaddlePaddle platform was created to meet the rising demands of AI development.

In April, Baidu held a press conference for its PaddlePaddle framework, during which it announced 11 major upgrades that the company expected would benefit more Chinese developers.

The partnership with Huawei is Baidu's next step in its aggressive AI strategy and the tie-up will support the fast growth of the Chinese AI industry, experts told the Global Times.

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