Baidu, Inc.

Published by Daniel at January 1, 2022

From developing autonomous driving vehicles to enhancing telemedicine, Baidu is committed to expanding the horizons of machine learning...

Baidu, Inc. is a multinational technology company of Chinese origin, headquartered in Beijing. Among many of its products, its most notable activities are searching engine development, internet providing services, and Artificial Intelligence development and implementation. Baidu, Inc. was founded in January 2000 by Robin Li Yanhong and Eric Xu Yong. Baidu’s name, which means “hundreds of times, ” is based on a poem that describes the beauty of repeatedly searching for one’s dreams in the middle of life’s chaos, therefore representing the continuous search for the ideal within the simple. This name is suitable for its mission, defined as “Use technology to make the complex world simpler.”(1,2,3,4)

This company is considered one of the most important internet-providing services, search engines, and Artificial Intelligence companies worldwide. Baidu is estimated to hold around 74.9% of China’s search engine market, compared to Google China, which has approximately 3.6%.(5)

A Giant of the Internet

Furthermore, Baidu provides services to more than 100 countries, mainly from Asia, the world region with 50.4% of internet users worldwide. As internet services are a growing market in China with an internet penetration index of around 60-65%, this company expects significant growth in the following years as national efforts are implemented for these purposes. Among a complete list of its products, Baidu counts with searching services for images, rankings for popular topics (based on Baidu’s search engine sensors), video search, academic browsing through specific universities of China, a digital wallet, e-libraries, and Cloud data services.(5,6,7)

Among a complete list of its products, Baidu counts with searching services for images, rankings for popular topics (based on Baidu’s search engine sensors), video search, academic browsing through specific universities of China, a digital wallet, e-libraries, and Cloud data services.(5,6,7)

The Automotive Industry of the Future

AI constitutes the future of many areas, and Baidu knows it. One of the most notorious AI projects in this company is the Apollo project, the most critical autonomous driving project worldwide with internationally renowned partners such as the BMW Group, PSA Group, Daimler, Hyundai, Ford, Toyota, and Honda. Apollo is an open-source platform for developing autonomous driving solutions, allowing free distribution and usage of this platform for developers. Autonomous driving has reached new horizons more quickly than expected. It has been implemented already in some provinces of china with driverless Taxis (ApolloGo) and miniBuses that use sensors and speech recognition real-time data from non-built-in sensors via synchronizations as fast as 100 mS using high-speed 5G networks.(8,9)

Autonomous driving has reached new horizons more quickly than expected. It has been implemented already in some provinces of china with driverless Taxis (ApolloGo) and miniBuses that use sensors and speech recognition real-time data from non-built-in sensors via synchronizations as fast as 100 mS using high-speed 5G networks.(8,9)

An Innovative and Safer Option to Drive

Some holistic and innovative solutions worth mentioning are the Apollo Smart Lights and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technologies. Both allow immediate data sharing between built-in and external sensors (in traffic lights, for example) and third-party vehicles. This means it will exponentially increase input data for a more integrated decision, broader awareness of surrounding and urban traffic planning for AI-supporting vehicles. So far, Apollo-powered devices have achieved level 4 of autonomous driving but too high costs of development, implementation, and manufacture for widespread use.(8,9)

So far, Apollo-powered devices have achieved level 4 of autonomous driving but too high costs of development, implementation, and manufacture for widespread use.(8,9)

Commitment to AI and the People

As a notorious company in the breakthrough of AI, in 2018, Baidu joined the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society, being the first Chinese company to join this multi-stakeholder organization created in late 2016. Since its foundation, this initiative has evolved. It now includes more than 50 organizations with four essential goals oriented to developing and sharing best practices in AI, inclusion for discussion and engagement, and identification and support of aspirational projects and efforts to use AI for socially beneficial causes.(10)

First Steps on Healthcare

This giant in AI technology has also explored different areas of medicine for a few years. Baidu began its exploration of the healthcare market in 2015 when the company started allowing users to contact local doctors, make appointments, and ask questions online. Later, in 2019, it launched a health science popularization platform in a joint effort with top medical experts in China and abroad, providing users with rich, comprehensive, easy-to-understand health information.(11)

A Helping Hand Through the Pandemic

On January 6th, 2020, Baidu announced a venture of 300 million yuan (around 45 million US dollars) destined for “epidemic and public health security.” This effort responds to support pandemic-relevant initiatives and systems such as screening, research, epidemiologic tracing, planning for future pandemics, extensive education for preventive care, and public health and safety information. In February, the contributions further extended when Baidu released free access to some of their technologies, such as the Baidu Brain Open AI platform. This is an open-source platform for AI implementation in small and medium businesses. The company gave away an algorithm named LinerFold for free gene testing to research institutions, providing tools that might help develop vaccines.(11)

Later, alliances with Xinhuanet, the United Nations Clinical Medical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, and the State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases resulted in the release of health-related informational material. This included the use of telemedicine and healthcare access for symptomatic patients and a “New Type of Pneumonia Protection Manual.” (11, 12, 13)

This is an open-source platform for AI implementation in small and medium businesses. The company gave away an algorithm named LinerFold for free gene testing to research institutions, providing tools that might help develop vaccines.(11) Later, alliances with Xinhuanet, the United Nations Clinical Medical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, and the State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases resulted in the release of health-related informational material. This included the use of telemedicine and healthcare access for symptomatic patients and a “New Type of Pneumonia Protection Manual.” (11, 12, 13)

Taking Sight on Biotech

Baidu, it no stranger to exploring and expanding into new areas like driverless cars and healthcare-related technology. Last month it was made public that its new goal is to launch a biotech company that would focus on using artificial intelligence (AI) and computing to create new drugs and make early-stage diagnoses of diseases such as cancer.(14)