Baidu shares fall 4% as its AI 'Ernie Bot' faces issues ahead of debut
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Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) saw its shares swoon Thursday amid reports that Chinese Internet search giant is in a desperate race to get its AI chatbot operational ahead of a planned launch next week.
The so-called "Ernie Bot" is set to be deployed across all of Baidu's (BIDU) operations beginning on March 16 with the company's search engine, and then to the general public. The move is part on the ongoing widespread attention being given to artificial intelligence with the rise of OpenAI's ChatGPT technology in recent months.
However, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Baidu (BIDU) has been struggling with getting Ernie Bot to perform some of its basic functions. Part of the reason for Baidu's (BIDU) speed bumps is said to be a lack of semiconductors that are now under U.S. sanctions, and that Baidu (BIDU) has had to use chips from other company products in an effort to keep Ernie Bot's release on track. 
Baidu (BIDU) shares fell more than 4% Thursday in reaction to the possible issues with the Ernie Bot debut.
Meanwhile, Alibaba (BABA), arguably the biggest and best-known Chinese Internet company, was off by 2%, one day after its cloud business inked a deal to with crypto company Mysten Labs that suggests Alibaba (BABA) is making some initial moves into the crypto industry.
Among other notable Chinese Internet company's, e-commerce giant JD.com (JD) fell by more than 9% as it reported a sharp year-over-year growth rate in its fourth-quarter revenue.