Baidu’s Cloud Playbook Goes ‘All Out’ for AI

Baidu, China’s search and ad giant, has aggressively re-focused its business on artificial intelligence (AI) and connected vehicles as the U.S.-China trade war heats up and online advertising matures and becomes less profitable.The company earned 80 percent of its revenues in advertising in 2017, but that could change dramatically in coming years. Baidu’s $1.5 billion, three-year investment in Apollo, its open source autonomous vehicle (AV) platform, has fueled scores of of innovations and partnerships.At CES in early January, Baidu released Apollo 3.5, which will be featured in a new self-delivery van from Udelv that begins trials in February in Surprise, Arizona.Apollo is already used by more than 130 carmakers and tech firms globally, including Ford, Microsoft, Nvidia, Intel, and Bosch.