After graduating from Peking University, Department of Information Management, in 1991, went to study abroad at The State University of New York, where he earned a doctorate in computer science.
After developing a real-time financial information system for the online edition of The Wall Street Journal, he worked at Infoseek on projects such as developing their search engine, and a picture search engine function for GO.COM. In 1996, while in the U.S., he acquired a patent for the search algorithm which would serve as the basis for Baidu’s current technology.
On January 1, 2000, he founded Baidu, Inc. The company began providing search engine technology to major portal sites. In 2001, Baidu.com began offering its Beta version of its search engine service, and has since grown to own over 70% of shares in the current Chinese market. In December 2006, he was ranked 4th among “2006’s Best Business Leaders” by the American business magazine『Business Week』. In January 2018 he was featured on the front cover of 「TIME」 Magazine.