For years, Baidu was known primarily as China’s Google.

But 2026 tells a different story.

The company is transforming into something much broader: an AI infrastructure provider, autonomous mobility operator, and developer platform for intelligent agents.

From its robotaxi platform Apollo Go to its growing AI cloud business and agent frameworks, Baidu is betting that the next wave of technology will be powered by AI systems embedded everywhere.

AI becomes the core of Baidu’s business

Image Source: https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/business/2024/04/16/baidu-says-ai-chatbot-ernie-bot-has-amassed-200-million-users

Baidu’s biggest shift is structural. AI is no longer a research project. It is now the center of the company’s revenue strategy.

Key developments:

• AI powered services now represent a large share of Baidu’s business, with its AI cloud infrastructure and applications growing rapidly.
• AI cloud revenue reached roughly RMB 30 billion in 2025, showing strong enterprise adoption.
• AI infrastructure subscriptions are growing quickly as Chinese companies build AI products.

Baidu is positioning itself as China’s equivalent of OpenAI + AWS infrastructure for AI applications.

Its ecosystem now includes:

• ERNIE foundation models
• AI cloud infrastructure
• AI powered search and marketing
• AI agents and developer platforms

Apollo Go robotaxis move from experiment to real business

Image source: https://economymiddleeast.com/news/dubais-rta-grants-first-autonomous-driving-test-permits-to-three-chinese-companies-for-on-road-trials/

One of Baidu’s most ambitious projects is Apollo Go, its autonomous ride hailing platform.

The numbers are starting to look serious:

• Over 10 million driverless rides completed in 2025 alone.
• Operations expanded to 26 cities globally.
• The company’s RT6 robotaxi vehicle costs under $30,000, enabling commercial deployment.

Baidu’s strategy is clear: turn Apollo Go into a global mobility platform.

Recent expansion moves include:

• Robotaxi launch in Dubai through the Uber app.
• Planned deployment in Europe with Lyft in the UK and Germany.
• Expansion beyond China into Middle East and international markets.

Unlike many autonomous driving projects, Apollo Go is moving toward profitability and large scale deployment.

AI agents and the OpenClaw ecosystem

Another major push from Baidu in 2026 is the development of AI agent infrastructure.

Baidu recently launched tools such as OpenClaw and DuClaw, designed to simplify building and deploying AI agents.

The idea:

Developers can deploy intelligent agents on Baidu AI Cloud without complex setup using visual configuration tools or even zero deployment workflows.

This signals Baidu’s ambition to become:

• A platform for AI agents
• The infrastructure layer for enterprise AI automation

In China’s ecosystem, this could power everything from:

• Marketing automation
• Enterprise workflows
• Digital customer service
• AI assistants inside super apps.

Baidu’s AI chip strategy

Another important but less discussed development is Baidu’s Kunlunxin AI chips.

The company plans to:

• Spin off the AI chip unit
• Launch new inference chips to power AI workloads
• Reduce dependency on foreign semiconductor supply

These chips will support:

• AI data centers
• foundation models
• autonomous vehicles

Control of compute infrastructure is becoming a strategic priority for Chinese tech companies.

From search engine to AI platform

Baidu’s transformation can be summarized in one sentence:

Search is no longer the center of Baidu. AI infrastructure is.

The company is building a layered ecosystem:

Layer	Baidu product
Foundation models	ERNIE
AI cloud	Baidu AI Cloud
AI agents	OpenClaw ecosystem
Autonomous mobility	Apollo Go
AI chips	Kunlunxin

Together these create a vertically integrated AI stack.

What this means for global tech competition

Baidu’s strategy reveals a larger shift in the AI race.

Instead of focusing purely on chatbots, Chinese companies are building full AI operating systems for industries.

Baidu’s focus areas show where it believes the next trillion dollar opportunities lie:

• autonomous mobility
• enterprise AI infrastructure
• intelligent agents
• vertically integrated AI platforms

While Western companies compete around LLM models, Baidu is betting on real world deployment at scale.

In Summary

Baidu in 2026 is not the search engine most people remember.

It is becoming something else entirely:

An AI infrastructure company powering robots, autonomous vehicles, enterprise automation, and intelligent agents.

And if Apollo Go continues scaling globally, Baidu may end up owning one of the largest autonomous mobility networks in the world.