Baidu operates the search engine Baidu and is one of China’s largest internet firms.
Baidu was founded in Beijing in 2000 by Robin Li and Eric Xu. Its core search engine became a dominant Chinese-language web-search service, supported by advertising and related online products.
The company later expanded into artificial intelligence, cloud computing, autonomous driving, mapping, and conversational technology. Those businesses have made Baidu a significant publicly traded technology company and a recurring subject in comparisons of large Chinese firms by market value.
Baidu is often mixed up with Alibaba and Tencent. Alibaba is primarily associated with e-commerce and cloud services, while Tencent is known for social platforms, gaming, and digital payments. Baidu’s defining original business is internet search.