Baidu Unveils NOVA Digital Human Tech at WAIC 2025
Baidu's AI Breakthroughs Shine at WAIC 2025
At the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, Chinese tech giant Baidu unveiled several groundbreaking advancements in artificial intelligence, highlighting China's growing leadership in the global AI race.
Autonomous Driving Milestones
Baidu's Apollo Go autonomous vehicle platform served dual roles at the conference - both as an exhibition piece and as functional shuttle transportation. The company revealed that Apollo Go has now provided over 11 million rides globally, with an impressive 170 million kilometers of accident-free operation. The platform is expanding internationally through partnerships with Uber and deployments in Middle Eastern cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
PaddlePaddle's Industry Impact
The PaddlePaddle Deep Learning Platform, China's first independently developed industrial-grade DL framework, now serves 670,000 enterprises and has facilitated the creation of 1.1 million models. Notably, the platform hosts 21.85 million WENXIN developers as of April 2025, demonstrating its widespread adoption within China's tech ecosystem.
Computing Power Advancements
Baidu successfully activated China's first fully self-developed 30,000-card intelligent computing cluster, capable of simultaneously training multiple trillion-parameter models while supporting hundreds of customers fine-tuning billion-parameter models. This development significantly enhances China's domestic computing capacity while reducing operational costs.
NOVA Digital Human Technology
The conference highlight was Baidu's introduction of NOVA, its next-generation digital human technology featuring three revolutionary capabilities:
- Script generation and multimodal coordination powered by WENXIN Large Model 4.5
- Real-time data processing for autonomous decision-making during live broadcasts
- Rapid replication requiring just 10 minutes of sample data to duplicate voices, emotions, and movements
The technology has already proven commercially viable, achieving high GMV in Luo Yonghao's digital human livestream tests. Baidu plans to open NOVA to industry-wide applications starting October 2025.
Key Points:
- Apollo Go reaches 11M global rides with perfect safety record
- PaddlePaddle becomes China's dominant DL platform with 21.85M developers
- New 30K-card computing cluster boosts domestic AI capabilities
- NOVA digital humans enable hyper-realistic avatar replication
- Commercial rollout expected October 2025
