Baidu
Chinese AI — Search, LLMs & Autonomous Driving
- Market Cap
- $35B+(Jun 2026)
- Revenue
- ~$19B(2024)
- Employees
- ~37,000
About Baidu
Baidu is China's dominant internet search company and one of the country's leading AI companies, investing heavily since 2010. ERNIE Bot (文心一言) — its LLM and AI assistant — had 200M+ registered users by 2025. Baidu's Qianfan platform provides enterprise AI APIs and its Apollo self-driving division is among China's most advanced autonomous vehicle programmes.
Company History
Baidu has been China's search leader since its founding in 2000. It began AI investment in 2010, hired Andrew Ng as Chief Scientist (2014-2017), and built one of the world's largest AI labs. ERNIE (Enhanced Representation through kNowledge IntEgration) has been in development since 2019. The ERNIE Bot launch in March 2023 was one of the most watched events in Chinese tech. Baidu's Apollo division has conducted over 50M km of autonomous driving tests.
Company Timeline
4 milestones- Mar 16, 2023ERNIE Bot publicly launched — China's first major ChatGPT rival; stock swung dramatically
- Aug 2023ERNIE Bot opens to general public; 30M daily API calls reported
- 2024ERNIE 4.0 Turbo — major performance improvements; Qianfan enterprise scale-up
- 2025ERNIE 4.5 family; 200M+ registered ERNIE Bot users; ERNIE Speed/Lite APIs free
Products & Services
6- ERNIE Bot
- ERNIE 4.5
- Qianfan (AI Cloud Platform)
- Apollo (self-driving)
- PaddlePaddle (open-source framework)
- Wenku AI
People & ecosystem
Key People
- Robin Li (CEO/Co-founder)
- Haifeng Wang (CTO, Chief AI Officer)