Baidu Announces the Opening of a Second Research and Development Center in Silicon Valley

Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU), announced today it has opened a second research and development facility in Silicon Valley as it doubles down its efforts to recruit global talent in the areas of AI and autonomous driving.

Baidu's newly unveiled research and development facility. Several autonomous driving testing cars are parked inside the vehicle lab in Baidu's newly unveiled research and development facility in Silicon Valley.

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Located in Sunnyvale, the 36,000-square-foot building is currently being occupied by a division of Baidu’s Intelligent Driving Group (IDG) which works on the Apollo open autonomous driving platform and a division of the company’s Internet security deparment.

Going forward, the new site, which has capacity for 150 people and features a state of the art vehicle lab, will be used primarily for autonomous driving and Internet security related work. Baidu’s current facility will remain focused on forward-looking research in AI and data centers.

“Opening a second site is a natural progression as our teams grow and our recruiting efforts expand in the US,” said Ya-Qing Zhang, president of Baidu who also oversees the company’s operations in the US. “Silicon Valley is becoming increasingly important in Baidu’s global strategy as a base for attracting world-class talent, conducting leading edge R&D, and partnering with top universities and companies.”

Baidu is one of the first Chinese companies to set up R&D operations in Silicon Valley, and investing in R&D has always been a priority for Baidu, which allocates 15 percent of its revenue to R&D.  First opened in 2011, Baidu’s US office has grown from a small team of just a few people to a leading R&D center with 200 employees, developing cutting-edge technologies in areas including speech recognition and autonomous driving.

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