Baidu is deepening its shift toward an AI-first business, with AI-powered operations accounting for half of its general business revenue in the second quarter as demand for computing infrastructure and AI applications continued to grow.
Baidu Core AI-powered Business generated CNY12.5 billion (approx. US$1.9 billion) in revenue in the quarter, while AI Cloud Infrastructure revenue rose 50% year-over-year. GPU cloud revenue surged 283%, accelerating from 184% growth in the first quarter. The company said strong demand from both training and inference workloads, alongside constrained computing supply, supported growth.
Baidu expects AI Cloud Infrastructure revenue growth to remain strong in the second half, with potential for further acceleration. It also sees room for margins to improve as higher-margin GPU cloud services become a larger part of the business and resource utilization increases.
The company is also expanding its proprietary AI chip business. Kunlunxin has broadened compatibility with major Chinese foundation models, including Kimi K3, GLM-5.2, MiniMax M3 and Hunyuan 3. Baidu said demand for the chips remains robust and that the unit's proposed listing is still ongoing.
Baidu's AI applications are gaining traction as well. Monthly active users of its Miaoda "vibe coding" platform rose 67% in June from March, while external customer token usage on its Qianfan MaaS platform increased more than ninefold year over year. ERNIE Assistant daily active users grew 83%, with average daily conversation rounds more than tripling.
Meanwhile, Apollo Go completed around 1 million fully driverless rides in the second quarter. Baidu expanded overseas operations, including fully driverless commercial service in Dubai, open-road testing in London, and driverless testing in Hong Kong. The company said it aims to bring more markets to unit-economics breakeven as fleet scale increases and costs decline.
Despite the AI momentum, Baidu's overall financial results remained under pressure. Second-quarter revenue fell 4% year-over-year to CNY31.3 billion, while operating income was CNY3 billion. The company warned that its advertising business is likely to remain under pressure in the second half as it prioritizes improving AI search and user experience over near-term monetization.
Baidu also plans to convert its Hong Kong listing to dual-primary status, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval, with the company expecting the conversion to take effect this year. It said the move could broaden its investor base and improve share liquidity.
Article edited by Jack Wu
