The Silicon Forest welcomes one more company to the grove. The top search engine in the Chinese language, Baidu, has opened an office in downtown Bellevue in an effort to expand its reach in the world of artificial intelligence and cloud computing. According to a recent Geekwire article, "Baidu, long known as the leading Chinese-language internet search engine, has expanded in recent years in areas ranging from financial to artificial intelligence -- seeking breakthroughs in computer vision, speech recognition, deep learning and natural language understanding." The company plans to hire 40 engineers to start; and those will add to the approximate 200 employees in the region already. 

"We're excited by the announcement that Baidu chose Bellevue to lead the charge in a commitment to the AI and cloud computing... Our Silicon Forest continues to grow and companies from across the ocean are taking notice and choosing our region for the prevalence of well-equipped tech workers and our convenient position along the Pacific Rim," states Realogics Sotheby's International Realty CEO and Owner, Dean Jones. 

Professor Ed Lazowska, the Bill and Melinda Gates Chari at the University of Washington's Paul Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering was quoted as saying, "Seattle's calling card is serious engineering, not quickie apps," and called our region "the world center of the cloud" in reference to our Amazon, Microsoft, and Google offices already settled nicely into the cloud computing world. 

If our ideal location, roots in computer engineering, and talent pool of employees wasn't enough to lure the company; it also helps that "Baidu recently signed on as an industry consortium partner of the Global Innovation Exchange, the U.S.-China technology institute in Bellevue, a first-of-its-kind initiative launched by the UW and China's Tsinghua University" states Geekwire. 

We are so excited our tech hub is growing and moreso that the Eastside is gaining another international company. As stated from the recent RSIR blog, "Baidu's move is simply the latest in a long string of out-of-town companies to establish engineering centers in the Seattle region."

Read Geekwire's original article here: Chinese Tech Powerhouse Baidu Opens Seattle-Area Office, Expanding Its Reach in AI and the Cloud

Read the Realogics Sotheby's Interntational Realty blog here: Baidu, The Leading Search Engine in China, Opens an Office in Downtown Bellevue