On the wall of the entrance foyer of Chinese tech giant Baidu’s cavernous Beijing headquarters hangs a small wooden plaque embossed with the golden number “1417.” It was taken from the hotel room opposite Peking University where Robin Li founded the $50 billion company back in 2000. Early on, Li was focused on cementing Baidu’s enduring position as China’s top search engine. However, he’d long been intrigued by artificial intelligence (AI) after taking undergraduate classes at Peking and Tsinghua universities. But upon arriving in the U.S. for graduate school in 1991 that interest was put firmly on hold. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “I told my professor that I was interested in AI, but he told me: ‘Don’t, you will not be able to find a job if you do that!’” Li laughs. Today, Li’s former teacher has been proven staggeringly wrong. The global AI market was estimated at $244 billion last year, while AI chip pioneer Nvidia is the world’s most valuable company worth over $4 trillion. Li saw the trend early and today Baidu is one of China’s top full-stack AI companies, offering everything from chips and cloud infrastructure to models, agents, applications, and consumer products. TIME caught up with Li on the sidelines of November’s Baidu World conference in Beijing while reporting our Person of the Year special feature on the Architects of AI. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. When you started Baidu in 2000 did you have any idea that AI was going to play…
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