Chinese search engine giant Baidu saw its cloud business achieve its first profitability in eight years as part of its first quarter financial results, released on Tuesday. Baidu also saw a return to growth in its advertising business, which helped the company beat expectations for revenue and profit in the period. The company’s revenue was up 10% to RMB 31.14 billion ($4.54 billion) in the first three months of 2023, with a net income of RMB 5.83 billion. On an earnings call on Tuesday, Baidu CEO Robin Li noted that generative AI represents a “tremendous opportunity” for the company, with its ChatGPT-like service ERNIE Bot, which launched in March, set to be integrated into all of the firm’s businesses for testing. Li also said Baidu has already applied for government review and approval of ERNIE Bot, and would initiate a large scale roll out of the service once they get a green light. [Baidu statement]