Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU) stock rose Monday after the company reported first-quarter earnings that topped Wall Street expectations, driven by strong growth in its artificial intelligence cloud and autonomous driving businesses, even as revenue edged lower from the prior quarter.

Baidu Earnings Beat Offsets Revenue Miss

The company reported first-quarter revenue of $4.65 billion (32.08 billion yuan), down 1.2% year over year and slightly below analyst estimates of $4.66 billion. Adjusted earnings came in at $1.75 per American depositary share, topping consensus estimates of $1.69.

AI Cloud And Marketing Businesses Drive Growth

CEO Robin Li said AI has become the company's primary growth engine after Baidu's core AI-powered business accounted for more than half of Baidu General Business revenue for the first time.

“In Q1, our Core AI-powered Business exceeded half of Baidu General Business revenue for the first time, marking a clear signal that AI has become the core driver of Baidu,” he said.

Revenue from AI Cloud Infrastructure climbed 79% year over year to 8.8 billion yuan in the quarter, while GPU cloud revenue surged 184%.

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