Chinese tech giant Baidu reported its first-quarter 2025 results with a revenue of RMB 32.5 billion ($4.47 billion), a 3% increase year-on-year, driven by growth in its AI Cloud business and advancements in intelligent driving.
The company’s AI Cloud revenue surged 42% year-on-year. Its core revenue stood at RMB 25.5 billion ($3.51 billion). Baidu also expanded its autonomous ride-hailing service, Apollo Go, internationally by entering Dubai and Abu Dhabi and began open-road validation testing in Dubai in May 2025.
“AI Cloud continued its robust growth in the first quarter, which provides solid support to our overall revenue while we accelerate the AI transformation across our mobile ecosystem,” said Junjie He, interim CFO of Baidu.
Meanwhile, co-founder and CEO Robin Li expressed confidence in their AI-first strategy and said they are positioned to remain at the forefront and to capture long-term growth opportunities in the AI era.
Apollo Go provided over 1.4 million rides in the first quarter, a 75% increase year over year, and has cumulatively completed more than 11 million rides as of May 2025. The service also secured permission for open-road testing with passengers in Hong Kong and formed a strategic partnership with China’s CAR Inc. to launch fully autonomous vehicle rentals.
Baidu launched upgraded AI models, including ERNIE 4.5 with multimodal capabilities and ERNIE X1 reasoning model, along with improved versions released in April at lower prices. The company also updated its MaaS platform and deep learning framework PaddlePaddle, supporting AI-native application development.
The company’s net income attributable to Baidu rose 42% to RMB 7.7 billion ($1.06 billion). Baidu’s investment in AI is reflected in increased costs, with a rise in AI Cloud-related expenses and traffic acquisition.
After its Q4 FY24 results, the company also appreciated Hangzhou-based High-Flyer-owned DeepSeek’s open-source approach that had accelerated AI adoption.
“One thing we learned from DeepSeek is that open-sourcing the best models can greatly help adoption. When the model is open source, people naturally want to try it out of curiosity, which helps drive broader adoption,” Li had said.
Baidu continues to strengthen its AI portfolio, holding the most significant number of AI-related patents in China. The company plans to maintain its AI-driven growth while scaling intelligent driving services globally.
