How Baidu Will Win China's AI race--and, Maybe, the World's

A company can have the best technology in the world. It can have the strongest talent. It can have the coolest product ideas. But to train the algorithms that will deliver the intelligence to transform our cities, it needs data. Sign up to get Backchannel's weekly newsletter. That's why earlier this year, after leaving Microsoft the previous fall, legendary engineer Qi Lu headed to Beijing to become Baidu's chief operating officer. At his former job, he was, among other things, CEO Satya Nadella's top deputy in helping to lead the company's AI strategy. Clearly, he saw more opportunity across the Pacific: In China, 731 million people--nearly twice the entire population of the United States--are online.