Baidu to use cloud computing, AI to improve behavioural analysis

Chinese internet giant Baidu says it plans to leverage advanced cloud computing to analyse the online data of millions of its users to help companies improve their marketing campaigns.

The Chinese search engine giant, which has real-time search data on more than 700 million internet users, is able to analyse individual users through its cloud arm’s artificial intelligence (AI), big data and cloud computing technologies, Yin Shiming, vice-president and general manager of Baidu Cloud Computing, said in Shenzhen.

“AI is bringing in new ways of thinking for many traditional industries,” said Yin, who cited the recent battle between Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo computer program and Chinese Go master Ke Jie as supporting his view that the development of AI technology has stepped up.

“Our Marketing Cloud, backed by Baidu Cloud’s data and technology, is not just saving resources and costs, but making marketing easier,” Yin said.

Despite challenges from other local search brands such as Sogou and Qihoo 360, Baidu’s dominance in online search has hardly swayed over the years, accounting for about 75 per cent of the search market.

Baidu’s mobile app is ranked as the seventh most popular in China, with 244.3 million active mobile users as of the end of March, according to Beijing-based research agency Analysys.