Chinese Internet search engine Baidu has announced the official opening of its research and development center in Shanghai.

Baidu's chief executive officer Robin Li and chief technology officer Li Yinan attended the opening ceremony last week. At the same time, Baidu announced its Aladdin Plan, which aims to solve the problem that the hidden websites cannot be identified by current search engines. Baidu has reportedly invested over 1,000 research and development staff into this plan.

Baidu says the information that can be found by search engines accounts only a small part of the total information. Most of the information is still in an unknown world. The ratio of known information to unknown information is about two to one thousand. Baidu's CTO Li says the launch of this Aladdin platform targets the unidentified hidden websites. If the search engine of Baidu is compared to a searchlight, searching and recording information in the universe, hidden websites are those areas that are never touched by any searchlight, says Li.

Li says the search of hidden websites is only a trial of the Aladdin Plan and the plan will be engaged in higher level searches, which are the digging and sorting out of hidden knowledge.

He adds that Aladdin is an open search engine platform and they hope this platform can instantly meet the search demands of users in the future.