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Dec. 19 (NBD) – Baidu announced a restructuring Monday to upgrade its artificial intelligence and cloud computing unit to a business group referred to as ACG, in order to facilitate the applications of AI technology to various industries.

ACG aims to fully utilize the company's technological advantages in AI, big data and cloud computing to find new growth engine, said Robin Li, founder, chairman and CEO of Baidu, in an internal letter. 

Tencent and Alibaba, the other two tech giants of the so-called BAT trio, underwent restructures as well earlier this year. 

It is noted that the three all emphasized To B services (services provided to commercial entities and other organizations) and cloud computing when revamping company structures.

In September, Tencent announced the third organizational restructure in the company's history, and among the changes is the newly established Cloud and Smart Industries Group (CSIG) that integrates Tencent's To B services including cloud computing, smart retailing, map and security products. 

Regarding the changes, Pony Ma, Chairman and CEO of Tencent, commented that the second-half game of mobile Internet had begun, which is marked by the shift of battlefield from consumer Internet to industry Internet, the latter largely overlapping with To B services.

Tencent is willing to assume the role of "digital assistant" for various industries, and help traditional enterprises and public service institutions to realize digital transformation in a "de-centralized" way, added Pony.

Later in November Alibaba upgraded its Alibaba Cloud business group to Alibaba Smart Cloud, which is aimed to "build technological infrastructure based on cloud computing for the whole society in the era of digital economy". 

Currently Alibaba takes the lead in cloud services.

According to a report released by consulting firm IDC, in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), an important sector of public cloud services, Alibaba Cloud took 43 percent of the market share, followed by Tencent's 11 percent for the first half of 2018. 

Alibaba Cloud put in pocket 14.75 billion yuan (4.1 billion U.S. dollars) for the first three quarters of 2018, and Tencent earned over 6 billion yuan (871.2 million U.S. dollars) from cloud service during the same period, according to the financial reports of the two companies.

It is noted that Baidu started cloud services later than Alibaba and Tencent which set off in 2009 and 2010, respectively. Baidu Cloud did not operate publicly until 2015.

However, Baidu is catching up quickly. Compared with last year, Baidu Cloud saw threefold growth in the number of both its users and partners, four-time increase in revenue, and five-time rise in online traffic, revealed Zhang Yaqin, preident of Baidu, at the the 2018 ABC Summit held by Baidu.

Email: limenglin@nbd.com.cn