Baidu has made progress in voice recognition, a key branch of AI research, as proven by its voice search function's increasing popularity in China. It is also making headway in developing driverless cars, which involves many AI technologies such as visual and image recognition, decision-making and map navigation, Zhang said.

China's search engine giant Baidu launched a project to bring scientists and sci-fi writers to collaborate on imaginative research on Friday. The project, named the Verne Institute after French writer Jules Verne, aims to blend wild imagination and solid science to bring more possibilities, Zhang Yaqin, president of Baidu, told Xinhua in an email interview on Friday. Verne famously said "Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real." Baidu chose to launch the project on April Fool's Day for a sense of contrast to underline the reality of it, Liu Chun with the company's marketing department said. Bridging science and sci-fi may be new in China but is a common way of collaboration elsewhere in the world, Zhang said.