Chinese tech giant Baidu saw its shares in Hong Kong soar nearly 16% on Wednesday as the company ramps up its artificial intelligence plans and partnerships.

Shares in the Beijing-based firm, which holds a dominant position in China's search engine market, had gained nearly 8% overnight in U.S. trading.

The strong stock performance comes after Baidu earlier this week secured an AI-related deal with China Merchants Group, a major state-owned enterprise, focused on transportation, finance, and property development.

"Both sides plan to focus on applications of large language models, AI agents and 'digital employees,' vowing to make scalable and sustainable progress in industrial intelligence based on real-life business scenarios," according to Baidu's statement translated by CNBC

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