Baidu CEO is ‘more relaxed’ as investments in AI finally set to pay off

Baidu chief Robin Li says the search-engine operator missed the boat on mobile internet because he did not grasp the importance of mobile phones at the time - but the company is not making the same mistake with artificial intelligence.

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Robin Li, co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Baidu. Photo: Reuters

Published: 8:00am, 23 Jan 2018Updated: 9:54am, 23 Jan 2018

Robin Li Yanhong, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Baidu, is feeling pretty good about himself nowadays.

One of China’s richest men with an estimated wealth of US$18.3 billion, Li just appeared on the cover of Time, joining the likes of Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos among tech luminaries featured in the magazine.

The share price of Baidu has been hitting new heights as investors rediscover the Beijing-based company, popularly labelled “China’s Google” and which, like its American counterpart, has bet heavily on artificial intelligence in recent years.

“We started to deploy in AI about six or seven years ago,” Li, who turns 50 in November, said at the GeekPark forum in Beijing on Sunday, according to a transcript of comments verified by Baidu. “Now that AI is become mature enough to have some use in the market, we feel relatively more relaxed, feel that this day has finally come.”

A line of Baidu driverless cars are pictured in Wuzhen, China. Photo: SCMP

It has not been this rosy for Baidu for a while. Just three years ago, investors had deserted Baidu in droves after the company missed the shift to mobile internet services. Unlike its main competitors Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings, Baidu failed to create the web of “sticky” interconnected mobile apps to capture the time and spending of consumers.