(Yicai Global) Feb. 7 -- Baidu's shares surged in Hong Kong to the highest in nearly a year after the Chinese tech giant said it expects to launch Ernie Bot, its own ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence chatbot, next month.

Baidu [HKG: 9888] closed 15.6 percent up at HKD162.90 (USD20.76) today, the highest closing price since Feb. 17, 2022. In pre-market trading in New York, its stock [NASDAQ: BIDU] was trading up 14.7 percent at USD163.83 as of 6.20 a.m. local time.

Ernie Bot will complete internal testing in March, the Beijing-based firm said late yesterday. Baidu is going all out to ensure the launch, a company source told Yicai Global, adding that the AI chatbot may start internal testing in advance.

Last week, Yicai Global reported that Baidu founder Li Yanhong said at a company meeting late last year that it is unclear what kind of products can be developed using AI in grid computing technology. Turning this tech into a product that everyone needs is hard, Li said. On Jan. 10 Baidu announced that it would "create answers" for users' open search questions and customized information needs based on its self-developed generative modeling capabilities.

AI startup OpenAI launched ChatGPT, or Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer, last November. It has more than 10 million daily active users, according to the latest figures. ChatGPT can mimic human-like responses, debug computer code, and be used to search for information.

ChatGPT has highly similar usability with search engines, which could undermine Google's position as a portal for online users, according to a report Morgan Stanley published last month.

Wang Yuquan, a founding partner of Haiyin Venue Partners, disagrees. He believes that ChatGPT cannot replace search engines because the computing costs are too high and data is not available in real-time. But the matter is still worth tech giants' attention, he said.

Editor: Futura Costaglione