On the wall of the entrance foyer of Chinese tech giant Baidu’s cavernous Beijing headquarters hangs a small wooden plaque embossed with the golden number “1417.” It was taken from the hotel room opposite Peking University where Robin Li founded the $50 billion company back in 2000. Early on, Li was focused on cementing Baidu’s enduring position as China’s top search engine. However, he’d long been intrigued by artificial intelligence (AI) after taking undergraduate classes at Peking and