Senior Vice President and GM of IDG, Baidu
Search every verified Zhenyu Li interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a March 2017 interview, Baidu CEO Robin Li discussed China's openness to global talent, contrasting it with what he described as the perception that the Trump administration is "anti-immigrant." He stated that China, following President Xi Jinping's speech, is "more open than ever" and welcomes talent from all nationalities and cultures. Li noted that Baidu already has a research center in Silicon Valley with over a hundred scientists and engineers, and more than 10,000 engineers in China. Li also outlined proposals to adopt artificial intelligence more widely, including using AI to adjust traffic lights to improve waiting times and using face recognition to help find missing children, citing successful experiments around Baidu's campus. He said the company spends roughly 15% of its total revenue on R&D, mostly on AI, and that "the era of mobile internet has ended and the era of artificial intelligence has arrived." Regarding driverless cars, Li stated that mass production powered by Baidu systems could be realistic around 2020–2021, and that Baidu is focusing on making the technology work while likely partnering with automakers. On trade tensions, he commented that "the trade war is bad for everyone" and that Baidu would not be the most affected as it has limited revenue in the US.
“Right now there's the perception that the Trump administration is kind of anti-immigrant, whereas for China — after President Xi Jinping's speech — you get a clearer sense that China is more open than ever, especially for global talent.”
“We already have a Research Center in Silicon Valley with more than a hundred scientists and engineers, and in China we also have more than 10,000 engineers — we already have a very good talent pool.”
“In the age of AI I think size matters — when you have such a large market you can try a lot of things, encounter new problems earlier and solve them with lots of data and smart people.”
“The trade war is bad for everyone — politicians are using it as a bargaining chip to try to get more, and it will hurt everybody; Baidu has research facilities in the US, we hire people and pay taxes, but we don't have a lot of revenues there so we wouldn't be the ones hurt the most.”
“I put forward proposals to adopt artificial intelligence more widely — for example using AI to adjust traffic lights to improve waiting times, and using face recognition to help find missing children; experiments around our campus worked very well.”
“Over the past couple of years we spend roughly about fifteen percent of our total revenue in R&D, and most of that went into artificial intelligence related work.”
“The era of mobile internet has ended and the era of artificial intelligence has arrived — we realized that and we are going to aggressively invest in AI because it's going to transform industry after industry.”
“AI will transform search first — you can take a picture to find what kind of plant it is, use voice recognition and computer vision to understand what the user wants, and extend that capability to many other areas.”
“We are focusing on making the driverless car technology work and more than likely we will be partnering with lots of automakers — they have strengths, we have strengths, and the goal is to make it a reality that people can enjoy.”
“I think you're right — mass production powered by Baidu systems could be realistic around 2020–2021; we are still on track though there are many technical problems to work out.”
Mar.09 -- Robin Li, co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer at Baidu, discusses the proposals he's put forward to ease visa restrictions in China, what he's doing to attract top talent and his concerns over rising trade tensions between China and the U.S. He speaks to Bloomberg's Tom Mackenzie on "Bloomberg Markets."
Sign in to search the full transcript archive, filter by topic, and access every quote from Zhenyu Li.
The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →