Why is Robin Li Recognized as a 'Global AI Leader'? The Reasons Behind It Revealed

[baoshi.rao]

On September 9th, TIME magazine released its inaugural list of the 100 most influential people in AI, featuring 25 global AI leaders including Anthropic's co-founders and CEOs Dario and Daniela Amodei, Baidu's founder, chairman, and CEO Robin Li, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and DeepLearning.AI founder Andrew Ng.

As the only Chinese entrepreneur on the list, TIME described Robin Li as "China’s most prominent futurist, long committed to the wave of AI development."

This recognition is well-deserved. Robin Li and Baidu have long been a flagship for AI development in China.

Aside from Robin Li, two other individuals on the list have strong ties to Baidu. Renowned Stanford AI professor Andrew Ng once served as Baidu's Chief Scientist, and the CEO of Anthropic, a leading figure in large-scale models and a key driver behind GPT-3, also previously worked at Baidu. It seems Baidu once gathered a group of top talents in the field!

As the leader of Baidu, Robin Li has consistently focused on AI:

• Since 2010, Baidu has actively invested in AI, dedicating resources to machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing.
• In 2013, Baidu established the Institute of Deep Learning, applying deep learning to large-scale search ranking systems.
• In 2014, Baidu launched initiatives like "Baidu Brain" and autonomous driving.
• At the 2016 Baidu Alliance Summit, Robin Li emphasized, "The next phase of internet development will be driven not by big data or cloud computing, but by artificial intelligence."
• In 2017, at Baidu's first AI Developer Conference, the company declared its "All in AI" strategy.

According to media reports, as a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Robin Li has focused on AI-related proposals for seven consecutive years during the National Two Sessions:

• In 2015, his proposal first touched on AI, suggesting the establishment of a "China Brain" plan to seize the high ground in the new technological revolution.

During the 2016 Two Sessions, Robin Li proposed accelerating the formulation and improvement of policies and regulations for autonomous vehicles to seize the high ground in industrial development.

At the 2017 Two Sessions, all three of Li's proposals were AI-related, including creating intelligent traffic signals to alleviate congestion, using AI and big data to address missing children issues, and strengthening AI applications across industries.

...

In 2022, Li's proposals covered topics such as autonomous driving policy innovation, promoting smart transportation to ease congestion, and developing "green AI" to support carbon reduction.

At the 2022 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, Li revealed that Baidu had been investing in AI for a full decade, with cumulative R&D expenditures exceeding 100 billion yuan and an annual R&D ratio consistently over 15% - a rare achievement among global tech giants.

AI research is an extremely capital-intensive field. Without the steadfast commitment of "top leader" Robin Li, it would be difficult for any company to maintain stable investment for over a decade.

In fact, Li has consistently been a pioneer in introducing new AI concepts to China. For example, long before AIGC became widely known domestically due to ChatGPT's popularity, Li had repeatedly discussed AIGC's vast potential in public forums. At that time, Baidu still needed to explain the term in parentheses: "AI-generated content."

When public understanding of AIGC was still unclear, Li pointed out: "AIGC will颠覆 existing content production models, creating content with unique value and perspectives at one-tenth the cost and hundreds or thousands of times faster."

This explains why, when ChatGPT went viral in China between late 2022 and early 2023, Li remarked at Baidu's annual meeting: "Not just peers in our industry, but people from various跨界 fields keep asking me about ChatGPT. I'm delighted that a technology direction we've been working on daily has generated such significant public attention - it's truly remarkable."

As Baidu employees say about their AI journey: "A decade of drinking ice cannot cool our burning passion!"

Robin Li has maintained a clear understanding of AI technology and its applications, unaffected by temporary trends. When the AIGC concept gained popularity, he pointed out: 'Whether it's AIGC or ChatGPT, these are new developments emerging from the advancement of AI technology. While the opportunities are not yet fully clear, the technology has reached this stage. However, there remains much uncertainty about what products will emerge and what needs they will fulfill.'

'On one hand, we are excited; on the other hand, we feel a great responsibility. As a company and a commercial entity, we possess such cutting-edge technology—can we transform it into products that everyone needs? This step is actually the most challenging, yet the most impactful and significant.'

Over a decade of continuous investment has positioned Baidu as a leader in AI. On March 16 this year, Baidu became the first to release a large language model and generative AI product, 'Ernie Bot.' Robin Li stated: 'Ernie Bot is the culmination of Baidu's efforts over many years. With humanity entering the AI era, the IT technology stack has fundamentally changed from three layers to four: chips, frameworks, models, and applications.'

Baidu has grown into one of the few AI companies globally with a full-stack layout across these four layers, including the Kunlun chip, PaddlePaddle deep learning framework, Ernie pre-trained large model, and applications like search, intelligent cloud, autonomous driving, and Xiaodu.

On August 31, Ernie Bot was fully opened to the public. Within 12 hours of its release, the Ernie Bot app soared to the top of the Apple Store's free app rankings, becoming the first Chinese AI-native app to achieve this. Within 24 hours, Ernie Bot answered over 33.42 million questions from users, earning widespread popularity.

Beyond focusing on AI technology and applications, Robin Li is deeply committed to nurturing the domestic AI application ecosystem. In May, at the J.P. Morgan Global China Summit, he announced the establishment of a 1 billion RMB Baidu Ernie Fund to promote the prosperity of the large model ecosystem. Additionally, the 'Ernie Cup' startup competition was launched, with the top prize being an early-stage investment worth 10 million RMB.

The 'Ernie Cup' attracted nearly 1,000 projects, with 15 finalists making it to the final round. On September 5, during the 'Ernie Cup' Demo Day, 32 AI-Native startup projects participated in a four-hour pitch session. ChatDOC, a professional knowledge Q&A assistant and reading platform based on document intelligence, and Buysmart.AI, an intelligent e-commerce shopping assistant based on large models, won first prize.

Robin Li revealed that Baidu would invest tens of millions of RMB in these teams, providing long-term support in technology, product development, strategic planning, and capital cooperation.

In addition to Baidu's 'Wenxin Cup' entrepreneurship competition, the company has also introduced the AI Studio Galaxy large model community for developers, plugin mechanisms, and the 'Galaxy' co-creation ecosystem plan for the Wenxin large model.

From this, it's not difficult to understand why TIME magazine recognized Robin Li as a global AI leader.

Since the concept of 'artificial intelligence' was first proposed in 1956, AI technology has undergone 67 years of continuous innovation and evolution.

As the editor-in-chief of TIME magazine stated in the commentary for the global list of 100 AI figures: 'Their insights, aspirations, and shortcomings will determine the direction of this increasingly influential technology.'

As AI technology enters a new phase of practical application and value creation, the leadership value of AI pioneers in the industry becomes even more prominent.