Who founded Baidu and when was it incorporated?
Baidu was incorporated on the 18th of January 2000 by Robin Li and Eric Xu. Li had previously developed the RankDex search algorithm in 1996, which formed the technological foundation for the company.
Questions about Baidu
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What does the name Baidu mean?
Baidu (百度) literally means "a hundred times" or "countless times." The name is drawn from the last line of a classical poem by Song dynasty poet Xin Qiji, describing someone who searches a crowd hundreds of times before finding the person they sought standing in dim candlelight.
How did Robin Li's RankDex algorithm influence Google's PageRank?
Li developed the RankDex site-scoring algorithm in 1996 while working at IDD Information Services. It was the first search engine to use hyperlinks to measure website quality, a concept Li called "link analysis." Google founder Larry Page cited Li's work in some of his U.S. patents for the similar PageRank algorithm, which Google launched two years after RankDex in 1998.
What is the Wei Zexi case and how did it affect Baidu?
Wei Zexi was a 21-year-old student who died on the 12th of April 2016 after finding an unproven cancer therapy through Baidu's paid search results. His family spent around 200,000 yuan on treatment at a hospital promoted through Baidu's advertising. Following public outcry, the Cyberspace Administration of China dispatched investigators to Baidu on the 2nd of May 2016, and regulators imposed restrictions including required disclaimers on health-related promotional content.
How large is Baidu's Apollo Go autonomous ride-hailing service?
As of April 2024, Apollo Go had completed six million rides using driverless robotaxis across 11 cities in China. The service operates a fleet of more than 400 driverless vehicles in Wuhan alone. In July 2025, Baidu announced a partnership with Uber to deploy Apollo Go outside the United States and mainland China.
When did Baidu launch its Ernie Bot AI chatbot?
Baidu publicly unveiled Ernie Bot in August 2023. A generative AI search chatbot, GenAI Ernie, followed in September 2023, and Ernie 4.0 was released in October 2023. On the 16th of March 2025, Baidu released ERNIE 4.5 and ERNIE X1, a reasoning model the company said performs comparably to DeepSeek's R1 at half the price.