Across The Border | Baidu’s seismic shift towards AI must start delivering the goods
As the gap between Baidu and its top tech rivals widens, CEO Robin Li says it’s now ‘going all out’ on AI, to stay in the race
Baidu continues to spend liberally on artificial intelligence (AI) research, to improve its existing products and accelerate the development of AI-enabled new businesses.
But analysts are warning the clock is already ticking on making sure that heavy spending can be quickly translated into profit.
Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent have been dubbed as China “BATs” – a triumvirate if internet giants that dominates the country’s online sector.
Baidu still holds the biggest share of China’s search engine market, Alibaba is the country’s largest e-commerce company, while Tencent focuses on social media and online games.
However, some now argue that Baidu is slowly dropping out of that troika as it loses advertising income to social media networks and mobile platforms. Although the company has pushed further into AI, the heavy spending does not guarantee bigger profits anytime soon.
Six years ago, Baidu was China’s most valuable internet company, with a then market cap of US$46 billion in March, 2011. Today, its market cap stands at US$64.6 billion, a 40 per cent rise in that time.