Baidu's stock surged 5% in pre-market trading on Monday after the Chinese search engine giant reported better-than-expected first-quarter 2026 revenue, driven by robust growth in its artificial intelligence cloud business.
The company's total revenue reached 32.1 billion yuan ($4.72 billion), topping analysts' average estimate of 31.35 billion yuan. Revenue from Baidu's core AI-powered business jumped 49% year-over-year to 13.6 billion yuan, accounting for more than half of the company's general business revenue for the first time.
AI cloud infrastructure revenue soared 79% year-over-year to 8.8 billion yuan, offsetting weakness in the online advertising segment which fell 22% to 12.6 billion yuan. The strong performance in AI-related segments signaled to investors that Baidu's transformation into an AI-driven company is gaining traction despite a 55% decline in net attributable profit.
