Analysis of Baidu Smart Cloud's Market Share Trend in the AI Cloud Market

According to the latest market data, Baidu Smart Cloud’s share in the AI cloud market shows a

situation, with specific trends as follows:

• The IDC report China AI Public Cloud Service Market Share, 2024 shows that the scale of China’s AI public cloud service market reached 19.59 billion yuan, and Baidu Smart Cloud ranked first for six consecutive years with a
  24.6% share
  [1][2]

• Based on the overall AI cloud revenue caliber, Alibaba Cloud ranks first with a
  35.8%
  share, Huawei Cloud with
  13.1%
  , and Baidu Smart Cloud with approximately
  6.1%
  [3]

This difference mainly stems from

——the former only counts ‘large model public cloud service call volume’, while the latter covers the broader overall AI cloud revenue.

Despite challenges in overall market share, Baidu Smart Cloud still maintains leadership in the following segmented areas:

1. Large Model Winning Projects
   : In the first half of 2025, Baidu Smart Cloud achieved ‘double first’ with
   48 projects and 510 million yuan in winning bids
   [1][4]

2. Government and Enterprise Market Coverage
   :
   • 65% of central enterprise customers
   • 100% of systemically important banks
   • 800+ financial institutions
   • TOP10 mobile phone manufacturers, TOP15 auto brands, TOP10 new energy vehicle companies [1]

3. Embodied Intelligence Industry Penetration
   : Remains the industry leader [1]

1. Intensified Competition
   :
   • Alibaba Cloud announced an investment of 380 billion yuan in AI infrastructure over three years [5]
   • Volcano Engine (ByteDance) is rapidly rising with a low-cost MaaS strategy, reaching a 49.2% share in large model call volume [5]
   • Tencent Cloud’s Q2 R&D expenditure reached 17.3 billion yuan, far exceeding Baidu’s 5.1 billion yuan [5]

2. Strategic Path Dependence
   :
   • Baidu Smart Cloud has long focused on large government and enterprise customers and industry customized projects (e.g., State Grid Guangming Power Large Model)
   • Although these projects have high amounts, they have long delivery cycles and are difficult to scale quickly [5]

3. Relatively Weak Ecosystem
   :
   • As of 2024, Baidu Smart Cloud has only 12,000 ecosystem partners, far less than Alibaba Cloud’s 150,000 and Tencent Cloud’s 80,000 [5]

4. Lagging Response to Price Wars
   :
   • In the price-sensitive competition in the SME market, Baidu Cloud’s response speed and resource investment are relatively lagging [5]

1. Strong Growth in AI Business
   : In Q3 2025, Baidu Smart Cloud’s revenue was
   4.2 billion yuan, up 33% year-on-year
   , among which the subscription revenue of AI high-performance computing infrastructure increased by
   128% year-on-year
   [1]

2. Full-Stack Technology Advantage
   : Baidu is one of the few companies globally with full-stack AI technology covering chip layer, framework layer, model layer, and application layer, holding 27,000 AI-related patents [2]

3. Transformation Strategy Advancement
   : Baidu Smart Cloud is transforming from traditional cloud services to an ‘AI-first AI cloud’, focusing on Agent (intelligent agent) services [5]

1. Overall market share may continue to be squeezed
2. Relatively insufficient R&D investment (Baidu’s Q2 R&D expenditure decreased by 13% year-on-year to 5.1 billion yuan)
3. Facing challenges in the large-scale competition of standardized public cloud services

Baidu Smart Cloud shows a

pattern in the AI cloud market——it still maintains a leading position under specific calibers such as AI public cloud service call volume, but faces strong challenges from competitors like Alibaba Cloud, Huawei Cloud, and Volcano Engine in the broader overall AI cloud market share. Whether it can reshape its competitive advantage in the future depends on whether it can convert its full-stack technology advantage into large-scale market breakthroughs.

---

[1] OFweek - AI Business Growth Exceeds 50%, Baidu Regains Strategic Initiative (https://m.ofweek.com/ai/2025-11/ART-201700-8420-30674154.html)

[2] OFweek - AI Cloud First: What Makes Baidu Smart Cloud Stand Out? (https://mp.ofweek.com/Internet/a656714566597)

[3] 199IT - China AI Cloud Market Share in H1 2025 (https://www.199it.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/1757386485239-9cwju5.png)

[4] Sina Finance - “Fifth Place” in AI Cloud Market: Baidu Smart Cloud’s Breakthrough Path Unclear (https://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/zqgd/2025-10-16/doc-infuacvq1215621.shtml)

[5] Sina Finance - Baidu Smart Cloud Market Share and Competition Analysis (https://n.sinaimg.cn/sinakd20251120s/176/w640h1136/20251120/53ea-bdbac524d5724a52ea38d3b4fa09e882.png)