Text / Six Gold
Producer / Node Finance
Baidu has just released its financial report, and many people are concerned about how much money it has made for investors, but Node Finance believes that the biggest attraction of Baidu's financial report is the strong momentum of its non-advertising business, especially Baidu Intelligent Cloud, which has maintained a high-speed growth trend since it appeared on Baidu's financial report alone in 2020.
Baidu CFO Luo Rong mentioned in the conference call that Baidu's smart cloud revenue in the fourth quarter increased by 60% year-on-year to 5.2 billion yuan, while in the full year of 2021, it increased by 64% year-on-year to 15.1 billion yuan.
Many securities companies also said that Baidu intelligent cloud, as the second curve of Baidu, promotes Baidu to get rid of the single income and become the most important growth driver of Baidu at this stage. The basis for this attitude of securities companies is Baidu's AI technology, which has penetrated into traditional Chinese industries, government service departments, and people's lives, and is helping the transformation of thousands of industries in the real economy.
/ 01 /
Baidu intelligent cloud has the confidence to accelerate continuously
Recently, among investors, there is a popular saying that investment depends on the cloud content.
Because the cloud computing market is large, there are few players, the growth rate is fast, the profit margin is high, and the threshold is high, so it has formed the characteristics of the cloud computing industry elephant dancing and running faster than the rabbit.
According to the latest report released by Canalys on China's cloud computing market, Baidu intelligent cloud is currently in the dominant position of "four clouds in the Chinese market"; in the third quarter of 2021, China's cloud computing market as a whole increased by 43% year-on-year, of which Baidu intelligent cloud grew by 64.7% year-on-year, far higher than the industry average; and Baidu intelligent cloud became the only cloud vendor to achieve continuous positive growth during the year.
Everyone can dance with elephants, but the reason for Baidu's smart cloud growth the fastest and continuous positive growth is that its customers are in the track of demand and fast growth.
We can focus on disassembling three important tracks in Baidu's intelligent cloud customer base that are growing rapidly: smart energy, industrial Internet, and smart transportation.
For example, in smart energy, since 2020, the State Grid has been using Baidu intelligent cloud services, intelligent devices based on Baidu AI algorithms, which have been widely used in transmission line channel visualization, substation intelligent inspection scenarios, intelligent analysis through edges, and through Baidu intelligent cloud, you can quickly identify hidden dangers of equipment, improve the lean level of production management, and improve the safety of line operation.
In less than two years, Baidu Smart Cloud has covered nearly 90% of the provincial network of the State Grid; and on the energy track, Baidu Smart Cloud has also reached cooperation with central energy enterprises such as the State Grid, China Southern Power Grid, Huaneng Group, and State Power Investment.
In the field of industrial manufacturing, Baidu Intelligent Cloud has successively built an "AI+ Industrial Internet Base" with Chongqing Liangjiang New Area, Guangzhou Baiyun District, and Jiangsu Changshu. Chongqing Liangjiang New Area, there are many top automakers and electronics companies, Baidu Intelligent Cloud is also building a technology, talent, capital trinity of innovation ecology, to help the local formation of competitive industrial clusters.
In terms of smart transportation, by the end of 2021, the number of cities covered by Baidu ACE Intelligent Transportation signing tens of millions of orders has soared from 14 a year ago to 35; Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai have three Apollo ParKs; "Radish Run" provided about 213,000 rides in the fourth quarter, almost doubling. And for Baidu, automatic driving can find problems from large-scale commercial operations, and then force technology iteration, future commercialization, will also enjoy a large degree of first-mover advantage.
From these hard powers, it can be seen that the reason for the continuous positive growth of Baidu intelligent cloud is not only the progress of technology, whether it is TO B, or TO G industry, Baidu attaches great importance to the combination of the real economy and the digital economy, and does not let technology float on the surface.
The "14th Five-Year Plan" period coincides with the critical period when we are accelerating the construction of a manufacturing power and a digital China, and all walks of life will enter the digital era, so Baidu's deep cultivation of intelligent cloud in the entity is its accelerating foundation.
/ 02 /
Yunzhi is integrated, tailor-made for the real economy
Not long ago, Baidu CTO Wang Haifeng said in the article ""Cloud-Wisdom Integration" Empowers Thousands of Industries": "Cloud-wisdom integration", promoting the deep integration of digital technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence with the industry, will produce "1+1>2" "chemical reaction" and overall efficiency.
The "chemical reaction" and overall efficiency of "1+1>2" are invaluable at the moment when the Internet environment is mature and the performance is stagnant. The Baidu intelligent cloud, which is based on cloud computing and engined by artificial intelligence, is the most differentiated competitiveness in the field of cloud computing and the most obvious trait in commercialization.
For example, in the past practice process, "Cloud-Wisdom Integration" can not only find abnormal products faster on the production line and use intelligent quality inspection equipment; in the digital transformation of power, the use of AI middle platform can improve the efficiency of power use and help carbon peak carbon neutrality goals; but also in the urban governance that is most closely related to the real economy, it has achieved "technology up, scene sinking".
Last year, there was a program on CCTV, and the famous mouth Sabine lamented Quanzhou, Fujian: "Here, the taps in your home are particularly understanding of you." ”
Behind the faucet that understands you is the Quanzhou Water Brain jointly created by Quanzhou Water Affairs Group, Baidu Intelligent Cloud, and Ehreidd.
As long as you stand in the central control room, you can complete the accurate management of the whole process of the water plant covering an area of more than 240 acres and 17 factories, and the management efficiency and accuracy are greatly improved, and even the phenomenon of "the whole water plant has only two staff".
In the face of thousands of households, the AI water consumption prediction model provided by Baidu Intelligent Cloud can combine historical water use data, as well as weather, holidays, seasonal changes and other factors to more accurately predict the water consumption through machine learning algorithms, so as to achieve on-demand water supply and tailor-made; at present, the accuracy of the AI water consumption prediction model has reached more than 99%.
In a wider range of life scenarios, Baidu Intelligent Cloud combines the actual pain points and demands of different urban governance, and quickly replicates and expands the "tailor-made" effect of AI on the real economy to all parts of the country.
For example, in shouguang, Shandong, the "vegetable greenhouse" in the country, Baidu Intelligent Cloud has joined hands with local governments and partners to build a leading and technologically first-class county city brain in China - Shouguang Brain, based on the pillar industry of vegetable agriculture.
In the field, the vegetable greenhouses supported by AI technology can manage dozens of vegetable greenhouses with only 2 staff and an APP, so that vegetable planting begins to change from "experience planting" to "smart + experience planting".
Shouguang Vegetable Brain, built with the help of Baidu Intelligent Cloud, won the 2022 IDC Asia Pacific Smart City Award
Also in Lijiang, Yunnan, the smart brain allows grid members to hold a mobile phone to receive reminders where there is a collapsed bicycle and where there is a piece of garbage. According to the People's Daily report, Baidu Intelligent Cloud has also built a "smart party building" big data command center in Lijiang, which can open up the "last kilometer" of serving the masses, compress the time limit for handling the incident from 20 days to less than 3 days, and basically realize that "villagers can't leave the village".
Therefore, up to now, Baidu's smart city business has been implemented in Beijing, Shanghai, Lijiang, Kunming and other cities, and more than 70 intelligent application scenario solutions have been created in four major sectors: urban insight, urban governance, industrial development, and benefiting the people.
Although AI technology will become more and more complex in the future, the "cloud-wisdom integration" will sink more and more, creating products that are closer to the real economy and easier to apply, adapting to thousands of industries, helping them solve the needs of complex scenarios, and making the digital economy better "tailor-made" for the real economy.
/ 03 /
Pull the cart down and look up at the road
The golden age of Baidu intelligent cloud has arrived
Robin Li said that the continuous improvement of technology is "to survive through ten thousand years of loneliness and hide in the sea of stars."
Because in the past decade, Baidu's R& D investment accounted for more than 15% of revenue, and investment continues to increase. In 2020, Baidu's R&D expenditure was close to 20 billion, accounting for 18.2% of revenue. In 2021, Baidu R&D's annual core R&D expenditure was 22.1 billion yuan, directly accounting for 23% of Baidu's core revenue.
Baidu also launched its layout of AI as early as 2010, which is one of the seeds planted by Baidu. "Before, the moment when there was no commercial return was really "lonely", and now, Baidu has finally ushered in the golden age of fruit picking.
According to IDC's latest data, Baidu has ranked first among AI public cloud service providers for five consecutive times, NLP has been first for four consecutive times, image and video have been first for four consecutive times, and face recognition has been first for three consecutive times. Therefore, before Baidu released the financial report, there were many brokers looking forward, and the intelligent cloud business would bring a lot of gains this time.
So in artificial intelligence, which may change the future, what we really have to do is to both pull the car down and look up at the road.
On the way up, Baidu Intelligent Cloud has now had the full-link autonomous and controllable AI technology capabilities from Kunlun chip to Feipao deep learning platform. For large enterprises, it can help Chinese enterprises to take the lead in development in their own hands. At present, Baidu intelligent cloud has won the favor of many government and large enterprise-level customers on large customers, with higher profit margins and more stable, and constantly looks up at the road and leads innovation in the base.
The flying propeller deep learning platform continues to reduce the threshold of AI industry applications, turning artificial intelligence into a tool that can be easily used by small and medium-sized enterprises and ordinary industry practitioners. Although the technology accumulation of small and medium-sized enterprises is not sufficient, and the investment in research and development is generally not high, small and medium-sized enterprises are the largest and most innovative and dynamic enterprise group in Chinese society, and they are the main force of "Made in China".
Therefore, Baidu intelligent cloud in promoting small and medium-sized enterprises to take the road of "specialized and new" development, has also been looking down to pull the car, dedication ability, by the end of 2021, the flying paddle developer community has gathered 4.06 million developers, serving 157,000 enterprises, developers on the flying paddle to create 476,000 models.
For example, in Tongxiang, Zhejiang Province, Baidu Intelligent Cloud and the industrial Internet platform that jointly build new materials and fashion industries, based on the "Open Things" industrial Internet and the "Flying Paddle" deep learning framework, have empowered enterprises to add industrial chains and created a focus on "industrial brain + future factory" for Tongxiang.
As an experienced industry and enterprise head player, it is now also the moment when Baidu Intelligent Cloud plays the "leader" of transformation and upgrading. In the penetration of thousands of industries, the future will allow Baidu Intelligent Cloud to explore the new blue ocean of more industries, so as to meet the enterprises, meet the industry, meet the life, and continue to make efforts around the internal circulation of the mainland, in order to achieve the two-way rush of the digital economy and the real economy.
From Baidu planting the seeds of AI, to harvesting, it took about a decade; perhaps in another decade, a layout like the intelligent cloud may become a watershed in the new era of technology, and a "cycle on the cloud" may be unfolding.
Node Finance Statement: The content of the article is for reference only, the information in the article or the opinions expressed do not constitute any investment advice, and Node Finance does not assume any responsibility for any action taken as a result of using this article.