On the occasion of Baidu's 25th anniversary, the company's founder, Li Yanhong, issued a letter to all employees, reflecting on Baidu's development journey and looking ahead to the future. In the letter, Li emphasized that Baidu has always been at the forefront of technological development, firmly believing that technological innovation is the core competitiveness of the company.
Li pointed out that historically, Baidu has invested over 20% of its funds into research and development, dedicated to transforming cutting-edge technology into practical products to benefit more people. He stressed that large-scale application is key to realizing the value of technology and is a pathway to achieving significant technological breakthroughs and disruptive innovations. He used Baidu's practices in the field of artificial intelligence as an example to illustrate this point.
In the letter, Li expressed his expectations for 2025, noting that while super applications have yet to emerge, the actual penetration rate of AI is already quite high and is expected to continue to grow rapidly by 2025. He looks forward to the seeds that Baidu plants in 2023 and 2024 bearing fruit and gaining market recognition in 2025.
Li also reflected on Baidu's entrepreneurial journey, starting from two small rooms in Zhongguancun to becoming a significant chapter in the history of China's internet. He mentioned that Baidu began with a simple web search function and gradually developed a series of star products such as Baidu Tieba, Baidu Knows, Baidu Encyclopedia, Baidu Maps, Baidu Wenku, and Baidu Cloud, while building a full-stack technology from chips to applications in the era of artificial intelligence.
Li acknowledged that being at the forefront of technology means taking on greater risks and facing higher failure probabilities, but Baidu has always persisted in exploring and innovating in AI technology. He cited examples such as Baidu's global pioneering of the image-based retrieval enhancement technology iRAG, which reduces the illusion problem in image generation; the release of Miaoda, which enables those without programming skills to have the capabilities of a programmer; and in the field of large model applications, providing excellent content creation and idea collision capabilities for paid users of Wenku.
Li expressed gratitude for the loyalty and dedication of all employees, hoping that Baidu can continue to forge ahead and create an even more brilliant future. This letter is not only a celebration of Baidu's achievements over the past 25 years but also an expectation and commitment to future development.
