Baidu CFO says AI investments could match legacy search profits

Baidu has spent years telling investors that its AI pivot would eventually pay off. According to CFO Henry He, “eventually” is arriving faster than the original schedule suggested. Speaking in September 2026, He said profits from Baidu’s AI operations are on track to match what the company earns from its traditional search and advertising business. The numbers behind the claim Baidu’s Q2 2026 earnings, released in August, gave that claim some structural support. The core AI business generated RMB 12.5 billion during the quarter, representing 50% of overall revenue and growing 25% year-on-year. The cloud piece of that story is growing fastest. AI cloud infrastructure revenue hit RMB 7.3 billion in Q2, up 50% from the same period a year earlier. GPU cloud services grew 283% year-on-year. Traditional online marketing revenue, meanwhile, fell 19% year-on-year. Baidu has been deliberately slowing AI search monetization while the product matures, so that decline is partly self-inflicted. The GPU payback math has changed One of the more concrete data points He shared involves how Baidu now thinks about the return on its GPU infrastructure spending. The payback period for GPU cluster inves...