“AI-powered technology will make traffic jams a thing of the past,” said Baidu Inc. CEO Robin Li at a tech forum last week.
Li is counting on it. His internet firm, a dominant force in the PC era when its search engine was a popular gateway to the internet, has in recent years hemorrhaged business to the largely walled-off mobile ecosystems of Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
The company sees smart vehicles as a lifeline, judging by its latest financial reports.
Li carved out a blueprint for the “intelligence of everything” as part of a media blitz for its self-driving car platform Apollo this month, as the search engine giant intensifies efforts to transform into an AI specialist.
A driverless taxi service running on its Apollo platform was last week given the green light to operate in Beijing, the third city in the country to do so.
Contact editor Marcus Ryder (marcusryder@caixin.com)
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