Baidu robocabs break even on one metric in low-fare China, company expects to cash in elsewhere
(2025/08/21)
- Reference: 1755752291
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/08/21/baidu_q2_2025/
- Source link:
Chinese web giant Baidu's robot taxi operations in China are breaking even when measured as a standalone business - and is confident they will be profitable once the company rolls into global markets.
On the company’s Q2 2025 earnings call, CEO Yanhong Li responded to a financial analyst’s question about the path to profitability for robot taxis. He responded by pointing out that Baidu’s robot cars are the lowest-cost vehicles capable of level four autonomy (driverless operation in pre-defined areas), adding that the company’s robotaxi operations in the Chinese city of Wuhan have broken even despite cab fares there typically being 30 percent below fares charged in other Chinese citeis, which in turn are lower than fares charged in many places around the world.
AI is just better at convincing people to buy
“For us, expanding overseas means going from low fare markets to high fare markets. Often with fares several times higher,” he said. “Our huge cost advantage can deliver much stronger unit economics in most major cities worldwide.”
Baidu is on its way to those cities, having struck a deal with [1]Lyft to operate across Europe and another with [2]Uber in the Middle East and Asia.
AI is helping Baidu in other ways. Yanhong said that in July, “AI contributed to generating over 45 percent of our new code with our developers providing oversight and approval.” That arrangement “has significantly boosted our engineering productivity and meaningfully enhanced our internal R&D efficiency,” he said.
[3]
AI has also helped to deliver a hit product, in the form “digital human technology” that Baidu offers as a means to create hosts for line infomercials.
[4]
[5]
Yanhong said the models Baidu uses to power digital humans are “just better at convincing people to buy.”
[6]China's biggest car rental company now offers autonomous cars
[7]As Alibaba launches server-grade RISC-V CPU, Beijing throws its weight behind ISA
[8]Baidu's PR head has a PR problem after workaholic social media posts
[9]Tesla maps out new territory in China with Baidu deal
AI search is going well but monetizing it has so far proven challenging.
Work on Baidu’s datacenters may help that quest.
Yanhong said the company made a “critical system engineering breakthrough this quarter by completing the large-scale stable deployment of prefiled detailed separation architecture. This breakthrough significantly improves inference on currency and resource utilization, while substantially reducing inference costs.”
[10]
“We keep improving utilization and efficiency through our industry-leading resource management capabilities,” he added. “By dynamically allocating computing resources, we can better match workloads with the suitable resources and manage demand fluctuations, delivering better performance at lower cost.”
Baidu is still evolving its AI infrastructure. “Our focus remains on building a flexible AI architecture that maximizes GPU utilization and supports a variety of chips, including domestic chips,” Yanhong said. The Register hears the latter sentiment increasingly often from Chinese organizations, unsurprisingly given Beijing’s [11]growing hostility towards Nvidia and [12]other US chipmakers .
While Baidu talked up AI’s contributions, the company’s revenue went backwards by four percent year on year in Q2, during which $4.5 billion came through the door.
[13]
CFO Haijian He said the company will continue to invest in AI, but said Baidu will be “very prudent in managing the pace to avoid future deterioration or fluctuation in margins.” ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/05/lyft_baidu_robotaxi_europe_2026/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/16/uber_baidu_robo_taxi_alliance/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aKbuOD419fmMafz2_HOMLQAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/11/zuchen_baidu_apollo_car_rental/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/05/china_alibaba_risc_v_c930/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/09/baidu_pr_chief/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/01/tesla_map_backtrack_baidu/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aKbuOD419fmMafz2_HOMLQAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/12/china_nvidia_h20/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/18/china_gpu_tracking/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aKbuOD419fmMafz2_HOMLQAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
On the company’s Q2 2025 earnings call, CEO Yanhong Li responded to a financial analyst’s question about the path to profitability for robot taxis. He responded by pointing out that Baidu’s robot cars are the lowest-cost vehicles capable of level four autonomy (driverless operation in pre-defined areas), adding that the company’s robotaxi operations in the Chinese city of Wuhan have broken even despite cab fares there typically being 30 percent below fares charged in other Chinese citeis, which in turn are lower than fares charged in many places around the world.
AI is just better at convincing people to buy
“For us, expanding overseas means going from low fare markets to high fare markets. Often with fares several times higher,” he said. “Our huge cost advantage can deliver much stronger unit economics in most major cities worldwide.”
Baidu is on its way to those cities, having struck a deal with [1]Lyft to operate across Europe and another with [2]Uber in the Middle East and Asia.
AI is helping Baidu in other ways. Yanhong said that in July, “AI contributed to generating over 45 percent of our new code with our developers providing oversight and approval.” That arrangement “has significantly boosted our engineering productivity and meaningfully enhanced our internal R&D efficiency,” he said.
[3]
AI has also helped to deliver a hit product, in the form “digital human technology” that Baidu offers as a means to create hosts for line infomercials.
[4]
[5]
Yanhong said the models Baidu uses to power digital humans are “just better at convincing people to buy.”
[6]China's biggest car rental company now offers autonomous cars
[7]As Alibaba launches server-grade RISC-V CPU, Beijing throws its weight behind ISA
[8]Baidu's PR head has a PR problem after workaholic social media posts
[9]Tesla maps out new territory in China with Baidu deal
AI search is going well but monetizing it has so far proven challenging.
Work on Baidu’s datacenters may help that quest.
Yanhong said the company made a “critical system engineering breakthrough this quarter by completing the large-scale stable deployment of prefiled detailed separation architecture. This breakthrough significantly improves inference on currency and resource utilization, while substantially reducing inference costs.”
[10]
“We keep improving utilization and efficiency through our industry-leading resource management capabilities,” he added. “By dynamically allocating computing resources, we can better match workloads with the suitable resources and manage demand fluctuations, delivering better performance at lower cost.”
Baidu is still evolving its AI infrastructure. “Our focus remains on building a flexible AI architecture that maximizes GPU utilization and supports a variety of chips, including domestic chips,” Yanhong said. The Register hears the latter sentiment increasingly often from Chinese organizations, unsurprisingly given Beijing’s [11]growing hostility towards Nvidia and [12]other US chipmakers .
While Baidu talked up AI’s contributions, the company’s revenue went backwards by four percent year on year in Q2, during which $4.5 billion came through the door.
[13]
CFO Haijian He said the company will continue to invest in AI, but said Baidu will be “very prudent in managing the pace to avoid future deterioration or fluctuation in margins.” ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/05/lyft_baidu_robotaxi_europe_2026/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/16/uber_baidu_robo_taxi_alliance/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aKbuOD419fmMafz2_HOMLQAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/11/zuchen_baidu_apollo_car_rental/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/05/china_alibaba_risc_v_c930/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/09/baidu_pr_chief/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/01/tesla_map_backtrack_baidu/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aKbuOD419fmMafz2_HOMLQAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/12/china_nvidia_h20/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/18/china_gpu_tracking/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aKbuOD419fmMafz2_HOMLQAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Baidu : 45% guaranteed non-human code.
DS999
I'd feel safer riding in a robotaxi than being a pedestrian or cyclist around one. Driving around a city it isn't going to be moving quickly enough to cause any real injury to the occupants unless it runs into a brick wall without slowing and you aren't wearing a seatbelt. It is the people around it who aren't similarly protected inside a car who are vulnerable.
I'm glad I don't live in a big city so they will be beta tested on the suckers residents suckers who live there before I ever encounter one at home.
Joking yeah
harrys
Financial figures out of China hahaha
And u thought the crony capitalism of the west could not be surpassed
Hmmmmm ... Perhaps this is a long term strategy of the communists to undermine capitalism from within
They'll fail of course, as by the time it happens all the now baby Chinese will be in power having grown under chrony capitalism :)
that's a somewhat tricksy headline ...
Anonymous Coward
I read it initially with an implied comma:
Baidu robocabs break, ... even on one metric in low-fare China, company expects to cash in elsewhere
Baidu : 45% guaranteed non-human code.
You can keep it. I'm not riding in that.