Baidu.com Inc. (BIDU): 2Q26 preview: Cloud momentum to sustain with improving margin; Elevated AI investment in 2H; Not Rated

Research evidence excerpt

Baidu.com Inc. (BIDU): 2Q26 preview: Cloud momentum to sustain with improving margin; Elevated AI investment in 2H; Not Rated

Goldman Sachs Baidu.com Inc. (BIDU)

business which we believe expected will continue outgrowing peers. Specifically, we

estimate still fast growth for AI Cloud Infra at +58% yoy in 2Q26E. Within it, we forecast

GPU Cloud will still deliver triple-digit% yoy growth in 2Q26E, propelled by the strong

downstream demand across different industries and Baidu’s full-stack capability.

Beyond revenue growth, we see AI Cloud margin as benefiting from a more favorable

business mix as high-margin GPU Cloud services increasingly account for a greater

portion of total AI Cloud revenue, together with improving profitability in legacy

project-based business. We believe the combination of strong AI Cloud infrastructure

demand and improving business mix should continue supporting the sequential

improvement of AI Cloud profitability in the following quarters of 2026E.

2. Advertising remains under pressure with no signs of a near-term inflection

In contrast to the AI Cloud segment, we expect Baidu’s advertising business (GSe: -21%

yoy in 2Q26E) to continue facing structural headwinds, on a combination of 1)

traditional search advertising, which is undergoing gradual erosion from changing user

behavior among the proliferation of AI tools, 2) still no breakthroughs from Baidu’s AI

search transition initiatives, and 3) a still challenging macro.

That said, we note that advertising now accounts for a progressively smaller share of

Baidu Core revenue mix (<50% in 2026E vs. 60%+ in 2025), and its drag on Baidu Core

revenue trajectory should gradually decrease over time.

3. Core OP to stabilize at -18% yoy in 2Q, but accelerating AI investments likely to