China's Baidu Sees Little Impact From U.S. Chip Controls

An executive of Baidu Inc., the Chinese search-engine giant and major artificial-intelligence company, shrugged off new U.S. export restrictions on advanced semiconductors designed to slow China's military advance. Baidu's Executive Vice President Dou Shen said in an earnings call with analysts on Tuesday the U.S. export controls would have limited short-term impact on the company, and he believes its AI businesses would benefit from the new rules in the long run. In October, the U.S. Commerce Department rolled out new restrictions on advanced chip technology, which require a license for U.S. companies to export cutting-edge chips used for AI and supercomputing and chip-making equipment key to China's technological goals. The move vastly expanded on existing rules restricting the export of advanced technologies to China. Mr. Shen said that a large portion of Baidu's AI and cloud-computing businesses don't rely heavily on advanced chips and that the Beijing-based company had stocked enough high-end chips for its businesses that need them.