Staff reporter and Bloomberg

China's search engine giant Baidu (9888) saw its net profit expand 17 percent year-on-year to 23.76 billion yuan (HK$25.38 billion) last year, partly driven by its artificial intelligence cloud business.

But the intensifying AI race worldwide may add uncertainties to the tech leader's outlook.

For the last year, Baidu's total revenues edged down by 1 percent from one year ago to 133.1 billion yuan.