CNBC AI Exclusive | May 22, 2025
Chinese tech giant Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) reported first-quarter revenue of 32.45 billion yuan ($4.47 billion), surpassing analyst estimates of 31.03 billion yuan with a 3% year-over-year increase, according to its earnings release on Wednesday. Under non-GAAP accounting standards, net profit attributable to Baidu declined 8% to 6.47 billion yuan amid intensified R&D spending in artificial intelligence.
CEO Robin Li emphasized the company’s strategic focus on applied AI innovations during the earnings call, stating: “While foundational AI models continue to evolve rapidly, their true value lies in practical applications. The AI landscape is expansive enough that leadership doesn’t require dominance in every niche.”
Baidu unveiled aggressive plans to advance its Ernie large language model series, with its next-generation Ernie 5.0 already in development. The company will open-source its cutting-edge Ernie 4.5 model architecture by June 30. Li highlighted digital human technology as a priority commercialization frontier, signaling imminent mass deployment of virtual assistant services across enterprise sectors.
The autonomous driving division showed accelerating momentum, with Apollo Go now operating 1,000 fully driverless vehicles across 15 global cities. Q1 ride-hailing orders surged 75% to 1.4 million trips, contributing to a cumulative 11 million autonomous journeys since service inception.
Addressing profitability concerns, Li outlined a clear roadmap: “Declining hardware and operational costs, combined with scaled deployment efficiencies, position Apollo Go to transition from tech showcase to sustainable profit engine – potentially our most compelling growth vector.”
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