Baidu shares surged over 4% to HK$160.10 in Hong Kong trade, hitting a near three-year high. The rally followed the Chinese internet giant's official release of its Ernie 5.0 AI model during a Shanghai conference. The move outpaced a flat market index, signaling strong investor confidence in Baidu's technology push.

The new model, initially unveiled in November 2025, is now available on Baidu's cloud platform. It features native full-modal modeling with 2.4 trillion parameters. Baidu claims Ernie 5.0 surpasses rivals like Google's Gemini 2.5-Pro and OpenAI's GPT-5 in reasoning and understanding capabilities, positioning the company as a leader in China's competitive AI sector.

This release marks a key milestone in Baidu's sustained investment in artificial intelligence. The stock's sharp gain reflects market optimism about monetizing advanced AI through cloud services. Investors will watch for adoption rates and how the model stacks against global competitors in real-world applications.