Baidu bonds to raise 10b yuan

Baidu (9888), the operator of China's leading search engine, is planning to offer about 10 billion yuan (HK$10.68 billion) of bonds offshore, adding to a string of recent debt financings by the nation's tech companies.

The deal will consist of a 5-year note to yield 2.6 percent to 2.8 percent, and a 10-year security at 2.8 percent to 3.0 percent, according to sources. It may price on Wednesday. The size has increased from earlier discussions of a total of at least 4 billion yuan.

Meanwhile, Chinese startup Zhipu raised more than 1 billion yuan in a financing round led by local government-backed firms.

Participants in the funding included Hangzhou Municipal Construction Investment Group and Shangcheng Capital, both controlled by the government of Hangzhou - DeepSeek's home town.

In other news, ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, announced the launch of its artificial intelligence coding tool, Trae, in China, making it the country's first AI-native integrated development environment.

AlipayHK launched an AI assistant and integrated DeepSeek into its search function, the e-payment company said.

Bloomberg and staff reporter