Baidu's Andrew Ng (Photo : Getty Images)
Andrew Ng's resignation as Baidu AI chief may come as a surprise for China's tech titans but on the day the news came, the three tech giants--Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent--known as China tech trinity, reported a 48 percent increase in their full year revenues.
The Financial Times said that although the combined market capitalization of the three tech giants may reach about $600 billion, with millions of active users, they still have not made significant presence overseas.
Baidu, which has led other tech giants on artificial intelligence (AI), may suffer a blow from the departure of Andrew Ng, who led a team of 1,300 researchers at Baidu's Silicon Valley AI lab. Robin Li, Baidu's chief executive, described the AI technology as the company's "key strategic focus for the next decade".
Ng, who is regarded as a leading expert in AI, will remain as Baidu's chief scientist until the end of April, the report said.
In his blog post, Ng said he has no plans yet on where he would be heading, but said he would continue to be involved in entrepreneurship and AI research.
"Having participated in the AI transformation of two large tech companies, I'm excited about looking elsewhere," Ng said. He added that he is looking for projects outside big tech groups, but he did not rule out the possibility of joining a tech group.
Meanwhile, Alibaba has a different story as Jack Ma made the initial step for his envisioned electronic trade platform which aims to help small and medium-sized enterprises for easier passage of goods.
The Alibaba founder and executive chairman spoke in Malaysia, the first country outside China to sign up to his company's electronic world trade platform (eWTP).
According to Jack Ma, he had made his plans last year "and we, as a company, have taken on the responsibility to make this a reality."
"With support from governments and important private sector collaborations, we will achieve our aim of enabling SMEs and young people to thrive and enjoy the fruits of the next phase of globalization," Ma added.
