Global Times: Internalize AI capabilities to accelerate the development of new quality productive forces: Baidu founder Li Yanhong in People's Daily article

BEIJING, Nov. 20, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The central theme of economic and social development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30) is to promote high-quality development. Achieving this requires accelerating high-level technological self-reliance and actively fostering new quality productive forces.

As a pivotal force driving the latest wave of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, artificial intelligence (AI) plays a critical role in expediting the emergence of these forces and realizing high-quality socioeconomic growth.

Over the past few years, China has achieved remarkable breakthroughs in key AI domains such as computing infrastructure and AI large models, establishing a leading edge. The nation's computing capacity ranks second globally, with innovative models like DeepSeek for inference and Ernie's native multimodal large model earning widespread acclaim. Baidu, for its part, has constructed China's first cluster comprising 30,000 self-developed P800 Kunlun chips.

To empower high-quality development through AI, a key focus must be on enabling industries to internalize AI capabilities and build native AI strength, transforming them into intrinsic drivers of corporate growth. This not only bolsters the expansion of smart industries but also accelerates the digital upgrading of traditional sectors.

Innovation should be spurred by novel AI applications. Technologies like digital humans, intelligent code agents, and autonomous driving are rigorously validated in real-world scenarios, yielding impressive outcomes. In e-commerce livestreaming and sales support, digital humans serve as highly efficient "digital employees." Baidu's Apollo Go robotaxi service, powered by autonomous driving tech, now operates in 22 cities worldwide.

Enterprises can select fitting AI tools, amass exploratory successes, and scale them through experience refinement and replication to hasten progress.

Full integration should be achieved between technological and industrial innovation, and innovation should play a more prominent role in driving development, read the Recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) for National Economic and Social Development.

"We should build more proof-of-concept and pilot-scale testing platforms, work harder to develop application scenarios and make them more accessible," according to the Recommendations.

By targeting the pain points such as repetitive tasks, labor shortages, high-risk positions, process bottlenecks, and complex decision-making, AI's strength in low-cost content creation, automation, intelligent coding, algorithmic optimization and other aspects can help firms cut costs, boost margins, refine decisions, and uncover fresh growth drivers.

Industrial integration should ramp up momentum, strengthening AI as a growth engine. As the world's sole country encompassing all industrial categories, China holds vast potential for deep AI fusion with the real economy.

Elevating supply chain autonomy in the real economy hinges on superior solutions for production scheduling, resource allocation, route planning, and transaction decisions.

Baidu's Famou AI agent (described as a commercially available self-evolving agent), dedicated to uncovering optimal solution, has delivered efficiency gains in intricate systems spanning transportation, energy, logistics, and ports. As industries leverage their unique strengths to embed AI capabilities and forge native AI frameworks, the "chemical reactions" from blending general AI models with sector-specific needs will propel social productivity and innovation capability to new heights.

Strategic planning should be reinforced to forge a consensus on "AI empowerment."

New quality productive forces are defined by innovation - not just in technology and business models, but also in management and institutions. Amid the systemic and structural upheavals from AI and other emerging technologies, exploring human-AI collaborative paradigms for organizations and operations is increasingly urgent.

Seizing the opportunities presented by the digital economy and AI is a must-win imperative for companies. To stay ahead, businesses need to embed AI capability deeply and seamlessly - from strategic decision-making to day-to-day execution, from customer experience to the entire supply chain - permeating every facet of production, operations, and services.

By claiming "intelligent high ground" in their domains, firms can integrate into the broader tide of AI-driven scientific breakthroughs, industrial growth, and application empowerment. This will enable smarter reconfiguration of production factors, faster conversion of innovations into tangible productivity, and a full unleashing of the society's creative potential.

As one of China's earliest and most comprehensive investors in AI, Baidu bears the responsibility, capability, and confidence to lead this transformation. We will ramp up investments to build world-class intelligent infrastructure, pioneer cutting-edge large model technologies, and cultivate an open industrial ecosystem, helping industries internalize AI capabilities, cultivate AI native capabilities, and speed up intelligent shifts. In doing so, we aim to contribute anew to China's high-quality economic development.

SOURCE Global Times