The President of Search Giant Baidu Has Global Plans

Google and Facebook are household names around the world. Ya-Qin Zhang, president of China's leading search business, says Chinese companies can become worldwide Internet powerhouses too. One of the biggest fish in China's market of 730 million Internet users, Baidu is trying to open new revenue streams both domestically and abroad by investing heavily in artificial intelligence. The company employs more than 1,700 AI researchers, including some at a Silicon Valley research center opened in 2014, and was chosen by the Chinese government to run a new national lab intended to make the nation more competitive in machine learning. Zhang even predicts that the self-driving cars Baidu is developing might be in widespread public use before those introduced by U.S. competitors.