Baidu’s BIDU AI Cloud business is gaining strategic significance as the company focuses on scaling its foundation model ecosystem and expanding enterprise use cases. The launch of ERNIE 4.5, a family of 10 open-sourced models optimised for reasoning, instruction-following and multimodal understanding, marks an important step toward strengthening Baidu’s technological depth in China’s competitive AI infrastructure market. The model family enhances interoperability across Baidu’s four-layer AI architecture and supports a broader push to embed generative AI across industries.
Qianfan, Baidu’s Model-as-a-Service (MaaS) platform, integrates ERNIE 4.5 with third-party models and reinforcement-learning tools to enable faster, more cost-efficient AI application development. The platform’s comprehensive toolchain and rising enterprise adoption have supported steady expansion in non-marketing revenues, with AI Cloud revenue rising 27% year over year to RMB 6.5 billion ($906 million) in the second quarter of 2025.
However, the momentum comes with trade-offs. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Baidu’s third-quarter 2025 revenues is pegged at $4.34 billion, down 9.33% year over year, reflecting short-term pressure as the company prioritises AI Search and infrastructure investments over near-term margin expansion. The AI Cloud business remains in a transition phase, with profitability yet to scale meaningfully amid rising competition in China’s AI market. Still, ERNIE 4.5 and Qianfan have positioned Baidu at the centre of China’s evolving AI ecosystem, and their commercial traction over the coming quarters will determine whether the company’s early technological lead transforms into a lasting AI Cloud advantage.
Baidu Faces Intensifying AI Cloud Rivalry
Baidu faces mounting competition from Alibaba BABA and Tencent TCEHY in China’s expanding AI Cloud landscape. Alibaba is deepening its enterprise reach through the Tongyi Qianwen model suite, tailored for verticals like finance, manufacturing and retail, reinforcing Alibaba’s leadership in large-model commercialisation. Tencent is advancing its Hunyuan foundation model across Tencent Cloud, gaming and social platforms, accelerating AI monetisation through ecosystem integration. While Baidu’s ERNIE 4.5 and Qianfan platforms provide strong differentiation, sustaining an advantage over Alibaba and Tencent will depend on execution, scalability and the ability to convert AI innovation into durable enterprise demand.
BIDU’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates
Baidu’s shares have jumped 44.2% in the year-to-date period, while the Zacks Internet – Services industry and the Zacks Computer and Technology sector have appreciated 29.5% and 21.6%, respectively.
BIDU’s YTD Price Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
From a valuation standpoint, BIDU’s forward 12-month price/earnings ratio is 15.02X, which is below the industry average of 24.09X. BIDU has a Value Score of B.
BIDU’s Valuation
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for BIDU’s third quarter 2025 earnings is pegged at $1.32 per share, down by a penny over the past 30 days, indicating a 44.3% year-over-year decline.
Baidu, Inc. Price and Consensus
Baidu, Inc. price-consensus-chart | Baidu, Inc. Quote
Baidu currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).