Baidu AI excelled at the 2025 Edison Awards, winning one gold and one silver award. RoboTaxi won the gold award for Best New Product in the driverless vehicle category, while Baidu's collaboration with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) on "AI Guardian for Endangered Species 2.0" received the silver award in the sustainability category.
Established in 1987 and named after the inventor Thomas Edison, the Edison Awards are considered the "Oscars of Technology." The awards recognize innovative products, designs, and technologies that significantly contribute to global innovation. The judging panel comprises over 3,000 leading global scholars, industry leaders, and cross-disciplinary experts, evaluating entries based on four dimensions: concept, value, impact, and achievement. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Arizona State University President Dr. Michael M. Crow were among those present at the 2025 awards ceremony.
RoboTaxi's gold award for Best New Product in the Driverless Vehicles category marks a first for Chinese autonomous driving technology. The judging panel noted RoboTaxi's combination of advanced perception and decision-making systems, providing safe and reliable autonomous ride-hailing services in multiple Chinese cities, representing the future of urban transportation. Since its foray into autonomous driving in 2013, Baidu has accumulated over 5,000 related patent families, holding the world's largest number of high-level autonomous driving patent families. In Guidehouse's autonomous driving competitiveness rankings, Baidu has maintained its position in the international "Leader" tier for two consecutive years, and is the only Chinese company in this top tier.
"AI Guardian for Endangered Species 2.0" is a wildlife protection tool jointly developed by Baidu and IFAW, effectively identifying images of wildlife products on online platforms to combat illegal trade. In recent years, illegal wildlife trade has shifted online, posing challenges to traditional monitoring technologies. In 2019, Baidu and IFAW launched the world's first "AI Guardian for Endangered Species," improving the efficiency of identifying online wildlife crimes.
In 2024, the two parties further collaborated to release "AI Guardian for Endangered Species 2.0," improving model accuracy, speed, and recognition range. Accuracy has increased to 86%, covering 34 endangered species and their products. As of March 2025, the tool has screened over 400,000 suspicious images, accurately identifying over 30,000 images of target wildlife products and leading to the removal of over 12,000 illegal trade advertisements.
Key Highlights:
🚗 RoboTaxi won the gold award for Best New Product in the Driverless Vehicles category at the 2025 Edison Awards, a first for Chinese autonomous driving, showcasing Baidu's leading position in this field.
🐾 "AI Guardian for Endangered Species 2.0" won the silver award for Best New Product in the sustainability category, effectively combating the illegal online wildlife trade and improving identification efficiency and range.
🌟 The Edison Awards are known as the "Oscars of Technology," and Baidu's two award-winning projects demonstrate its outstanding strength and contribution to technological innovation.
