Baidu sets up research lab in Silicon Valley

China's largest search engine provider Baidu Inc has set up an artificial intelligence laboratory in Silicon Valley in the United States to boost its research work to catch up with Internet giants like Google and Apple.

Andrew Ng, former co-founder of online learning site Coursera, has been named as chief scientist to head Baidu's research lab, the company said in a statement over the weekend.

The lab aims to deepen studies on improving computing tasks by mimicking the way the human brain operates. Baidut had said it would invest about $300 million in the project over the next five years. In the first quarter this year, Baidu invested 1.27 billion yuan ($204 million) in research and development. Baidu, which has a voice recognition application on the Android platform, also has research facilities in Beijing.