Shares in Chinese search giant Baidu closed down 7 percent in Hong Kong trading on Monday, erasing $2.4bn from its market value, after no executives from the firm were seen attending a meeting with president Xi Jinping and key leaders from major companies.
The meeting between Xi and top business leaders, including Alibaba founder Jack Ma and Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, was seen as an important moment for the tech sector, after years of regulatory crackdown that began in 2020.
Robin Li, the founder of Baidu, was not seen attending the symposium, fuelling speculation over its broader market position.
The chief of JD.com, Richard Liu, was also absent, sending the company’s shares down more than 3 percent.
Other attendees included Robin Zheng, chair of battery giant CATL, Meituan chief Wang Xing, Tencent chief Pony Ma, Wang Chanfu, chair of electric vehicle maker BYD, Xiaomi chief Lei Jun and Liang Wenfeng, founder of AI start-up DeepSeek.
Alibaba’s Ma was one of the biggest losers from the regulatory crackdown and spent more than a year outside of China before returning in 2023.
His presence at the meeting was interpreted as an affirmation that he has been rehabilitated within the country’s economic system.
The presence of DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng at the meeting similarly reinforced the importance of the start-up in China, after the company’s overnight surge to worldwide popularity in late January challenged assumptions about US dominance of the AI industry.
Adding to questions around Baidu was the search company’s announcement on Monday that it would integrate DeepSeek into its search engine alongside Baidu’s own Ernie model.
Baidu said last week it would switch to an open source development model for Ernie and would offer the Ernie Bot chatbot for free, both moves apparently prompted by DeepSeek’s success with its open source approach.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong-traded shares of Tencent closed nearly 4 percent up on Monday after the company said it had begun beta-testing integration of DeepSeek into its Weixin messaging app, known as WeChat internationally, the country’s most popular super-app.
DeepSeek has spurred broader investor interest in Chinese stocks and the potential of China to compete in cutting-edge technologies, sending Chinese tech stocks into their biggest rally in more than two years last week.
Goldman Sachs on Monday raised its target price for Chinese stocks, saying AI adoption could potentially bring in $200 billion (£158bn) of inflows.
At the symposium, Xi encouraged entrepreneurs to promote innovation while expressing patriotic ideals.
“Entrepreneurs should be full of entrepreneurial and patriotic passion, continuously elevate their ideals and cultivate a deep sense of national responsibility,” he said.
