THERE is a gold rush going on at the digital frontier. As the economies of the likes of Brazil and India grow, so does the demand for web services of the kind that Westerners have come to take for granted: fast, reliable and ubiquitous.
We鈥檝e heard a lot about established tech giants鈥� plans to deliver internet to the masses. Facebook wants to use drones; Google is opting for high-flying balloons. Others are hard at work on websites specially designed for non-Western cultures. Now there is a new player in the game, and it may change the rules.
Baidu, a search engine based in Beijing, has lofty ambitions. Having conquered China, it is expanding into other growing digital markets, including Brazil, Egypt and Thailand. It is also busily setting up labs to perform the kind of cutting-edge research at which Google excels (see 鈥�The new Google? Baidu鈥檚 big plans to bust out of China鈥�). More and more, it seems, Baidu is not satisfied with simply emulating US companies at home: it wants to become the developing world鈥檚 Google.
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There is every reason to believe it can succeed. Baidu was itself forged in a rapidly developing country. China鈥檚 digital market is vast, with more than 600 million internet users, but it also varies widely in digital literacy and infrastructure, from savvy consumers in the cities of the east to uneducated peasants in the rural west. Baidu has learned to tune itself to China鈥檚 varying needs. That experience may allow it to offer services that US companies don鈥檛 understand.
Baidu鈥檚 prospects in the West are less rosy. The company is toxically associated with China鈥檚 censorship policies, and the English-speaking part of the web is already largely spoken for.
But as Baidu enters territories that US web giants covet, we can expect some interesting culture clashes. 鈥淢ade in China鈥� versus 鈥渕ade in Silicon Valley鈥� is about more than business competition. It will influence how a whole generation of people outside the West understand the world and their place in it.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淒igital hearts and minds鈥�
