BEIJING, July 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) boasts the highest market share and highest number of invocations in China's fast-growing AI public cloud services market, a recent report from International Data Corporation (IDC) showed, reflecting the company's continuous investments in building core AI technologies and new infrastructure to power industrial transformation.
The market for AI cloud services in China was valued at $166 million USD in 2019, with Baidu Cloud holding the largest share, according to the IDC report titled "China's Artificial Intelligence Cloud Services Market Research Report (2019)". IDC says AI capabilities have become a key consideration for users when choosing cloud services vendors, setting up the market for tremendous growth. The research firm predicts that China's AI cloud services market will see a compound annual growth rate of 93.6% between 2018 and 2024.
According to the report, in addition to leading in market share and invocations, Baidu Cloud offers the most overall AI products and AI capabilities. Baidu also has the most capabilities in natural language processing (NLP) and strong positions in intelligent voice, facial and body recognition, conversational AI, and machine learning. Baidu Cloud is also the only vendor to have already commercialized NLP at scale as part of its cloud services, with most other vendors not charging fees for NLP capabilities until this year. In total, Baidu Cloud has opened up more than 250 AI capabilities that service 1.9 million developers, who cumulatively use these capabilities 1 trillion times per day on average.
IDC's Latest Report on China's AI Cloud Market
"As an AI platform company that is focused on empowering other organizations, Baidu hopes that every enterprise, no matter how small, is able to use capabilities and services provided by our platforms, just like they were water and electricity, to quickly and easily realize intelligent transformation," said Robin Li, the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Baidu, during a speech at the 2020 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) on July 9.
"Baidu Cloud relies on AI capabilities and platforms for AI development -- our two large core advantages -- and has become one of the main drivers of industrial AI and a leading cloud service provider."
Baidu views AI cloud services as a key pillar of new infrastructure that will accelerate the intelligent transformation of various industries. In May, Baidu released the "AI Middle Office" and "Knowledge Middle Office", two cloud-based platforms that reduce the threshold for companies to apply AI technology. The two platforms have already been used for AI applications in energy, finance, and other industries. Due to the pandemic, more and more companies across industries are determined to adopt AI technology to increase efficiency and competitiveness, which is contributing to the fast-growth in AI cloud services.
Over the past week, Baidu Cloud secured three strategic agreements to apply AI in various industries. Baidu Cloud and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (SPDB) reached an agreement to deepen collaboration on applying AI in the finance industry, while Baidu Cloud and China National Building Material Group agreed to collaborate on smart logistics, the digital transformation of mining, smart factories, and AI-powered data centers, among others. Baidu Cloud and the People's Government of Shanghai Pudong New Area also signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement to establish the nation's first Baidu PaddlePaddle AI industry empowerment center and collaborate on intelligent urban management. As part of its investments in building new infrastructure, Baidu also recently announced plans to deploy 5 million intelligent cloud servers by 2030 and train 5 million AI experts in the next 5 years.
Haifeng Wang, Baidu's chief technology officer, said that new infrastructure will be the kinetic energy for China's economic development in the next few decades. Emerging technologies like AI, cloud computing, 5G, the Internet of Things, and blockchain will provide key support for all industries.
Going forward, Baidu will speed up the rollout of new infrastructure, drawing on its years of AI technology achievements and experience to accelerate the application of AI and realize a truly intelligent economy.
About Baidu
Baidu, Inc. is a leading search engine, knowledge and information centered Internet platform and AI company. The Company's mission is to make the complicated world simpler through technology. Baidu's ADSs trade on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "BIDU". Currently, ten ADSs represent one Class A ordinary share.
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