Baidu

Baidu is China's largest internet search engine company, founded in 2000 by Robin Li and Eric Xu. Headquartered in Beijing's Haidian District, it dominates the Chinese search market and is currently transforming from a search company into a full AI infrastructure enterprise.

In AI, Baidu develops the ERNIE (文心一言) series of large language models, with ERNIE 4.5/X1 launched in 2025 and ERNIE 5.0 in January 2026. Its autonomous driving platform Apollo Go has delivered over 20 million cumulative rides as of February 2026, approaching unit-economic profitability in cities like Wuhan and Beijing. The AI chip subsidiary Kunlunxin filed for a Hong Kong IPO in January 2026, and Baidu partnered with Uber for commercial robotaxi deployment in Dubai.