Baidu released its financial results for the first half of 2026, reporting total revenues of 63.4 billion yuan and cementing its corporate transformation from an internet-focused firm into an artificial intelligence enterprise. AI-related operations emerged as a primary growth engine, with AI business revenue reaching 26.1 billion yuan, marking a 36 percent year-over-year increase and accounting for 51 percent of Baidu's general business revenue of 51.2 billion yuan.
The financial milestone for the Chinese search engine powerhouse follows a strategic pivot that saw core AI revenues cross the halfway threshold earlier in the year. Company executives highlighted that artificial intelligence is now firmly established as the core foundation of Baidu's business operations, generating a more balanced and resilient revenue structure.
Cloud infrastructure anchored this financial momentum. During the first half of the year, AI cloud infrastructure revenue surged 65 percent year-over-year to 16.1 billion yuan, propelled by a 230 percent jump in GPU cloud revenue. Speaking at the 2026 Intelligent Economic Forum in Beijing, Baidu Group Executive Vice President and Baidu Intelligent Cloud Group President Shen Shidu introduced the concept of an industrial agent operating system. Shen noted that the framework aims to bridge model capabilities with economic growth, categorizing industrial agents into general, professional, and customized types to translate technological advancements into tangible corporate productivity. As part of this open ecosystem strategy, Baidu announced that its Tianchi supernode has achieved full-stack domestic independence and opened technical specifications across six core modules.
AI applications also saw explosive expansion, contributing 5 billion yuan in revenue during the first half. Baidu's office application matrix, featuring Baidu Dazi, Kuku AI, and Miaoda, dominated domestic charts. Baidu Dazi recorded 6.74 million monthly active users with a month-over-month growth rate exceeding 1000 percent, while Kuku AI surpassed 25 million monthly active users to rank first in the office intelligent agent sector. Miaoda, the industry's first no-code application commercial platform, has generated 5 million commercial-value applications since its launch over a year ago.
In marketing and automated services, AI-native marketing revenue grew 15 percent year-over-year to 4.9 billion yuan. Baidu Yijing secured top honors at the Busan International Advertising Festival and maintained its ranking as China's leading digital human market provider according to third-party industry reports.
Autonomous driving subsidiary Apollo Go continued its international expansion footprint, extending operations to 28 global cities. Total cumulative autonomous driving distance surpassed 350 million kilometers, with fully unmanned operations accounting for over 240 million kilometers.
In capital markets, Baidu completed its transition to a dual-primary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on September 1, followed by its official inclusion in the Stock Connect program on September 7, allowing mainland investors direct trading access. The company was subsequently incorporated into multiple prominent technology indexes, including the HKEX Tech 100 and U.S. Tech 100 indices.
Expanding its consumer service ecosystem, Baidu Maps introduced specialized navigation solutions for the two-wheeler market. Speaking at the China Motorcycle Chongqing Forum, Baidu Maps smart service product lead Zhang Chaoyong noted that navigation ranks among the top three demands for motorcycle and scooter users. Baidu Maps unveiled a new motorcycle travel intelligent agent supporting smart search, retrieval-augmented generation inquiries, intelligent route planning, fuzzy point-of-interest navigation, and customized recommendations. The upgraded mapping system brings full-function navigation capabilities to low-power RTOS systems, enabling direct screen casting and real-time cruise data like traffic light countdowns on vehicle dashboards.
