Baidu has announced the departure of chief operating officer Qi Lu from July. Qi said that due to personal and family reasons, he will no longer be able to work in China on a full-time basis. He will continue to serve as vice chairman of the board of directors. Qi said he will be spending more time with his family in the US and that he is planning to work in research and investment areas.
A former executive at Microsoft, Lu was hired in January 2017, taking over day-to-day leadership from Baidu chairman Robin Li. No successor has yet been announced.
In other news, Haifeng Wang has been promoted to senior VP and GM of Baidu's AI Group (AIG). Wang joined Baidu in 2010 and became a VP in October 2013. He currently oversees the company's AI efforts in machine learning, big data, computer vision, natural language processing, speech technology, knowledge graph, robotics and augmented reality.
CEO Robin Li said that Baidu’s strategy to transform into an AI-first company was firmly in place and that the company was well positioned to continue the momentum built up in the past year.
