By Stephen Nakrosis

Baidu Inc. said Thursday it plans to increase its investment in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, data centers and other new infrastructure over the next 10 years to prepare for "the smart economy of the future."

The company also said it plans to train five million AI professionals in the next five years. To that end, Baidu said, it has "been working with more than 200 leading universities in China to develop courses related to AI and deep learning and has already trained more than one million AI experts."

The company also plans to have five million intelligent cloud servers by 2030, it said.

"New infrastructure--which encompasses emerging technologies like AI, cloud computing, 5G, IoT and blockchain--will be the driver for China's economic development in the coming decades," said Haifeng Wang, Baidu's chief technology officer.

Baidu says it is a search engine, knowledge and information centered internet platform and AI company. 



  --Write to Stephen Nakrosis at stephen.nakrosis@wsj.com