Baidu is to China as Google is to the US. Not only did both originate as search engines and become the most popular ones in the world (Baidu is second to Google in popularity, and takes up 80% market share in China), but both also saw the potential of Artificial Intelligence, becoming first movers in the industry. And both are investing heavily in the future of self-driving vehicles.
Baidu’s autonomous driving progress has surprised the western world and is being relied on by the Chinese government to speed-up this area of technology development on a national scale. For the past two years, Baidu has put its resources primarily in the technology underlying AI, (Cloud +Baidu Brain), as well as AI-focused new businesses such as conversational AI platforms (DuerOS) and smart transportation platforms (Apollo). In fact, Robin Li has made Artificial Intelligence Baidu’s most important strategic development direction in the next 10 years, declaring all-in on A.I.
This report profiles Baidu's current developments in A.I. and related fields.