Adam Coates of Baidu Research Recognized by MIT Technology Review's Annual "Innovators Under 35" List

SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwired - Aug 18, 2015) - MIT Technology Review revealed today its annual list of Innovators Under 35. For over a decade, the global media company has recognized a list of exceptionally talented technologists whose work has great potential to transform the world.

Dr. Adam Coates of Baidu Research, a division of Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU), has been recognized on the list as a visionary for his work in the field of software.

Over the past six years, Adam has been a leading researcher and advocate in the area of deep learning, a branch of artificial intelligence. His thesis at Stanford University investigated the development of deep learning methods, particularly the success of large neural networks trained from large datasets.

Adam currently serves as Director of Baidu Research's Silicon Valley AI Lab (SVAIL), which was founded in 2014 to develop advanced AI technologies across a range of domains.

Adam was one of the early proponents of applying powerful high-performance computing (HPC) techniques to deep learning. His work contributed to a shift in the AI community toward understanding the advantages of utilizing HPC to make progress in AI. Today, HPC is at the foundation of SVAIL's research.

In December, Adam's team announced Deep Speech, a state-of-the-art speech recognition system, developed using end-to-end deep learning. The system, which is being trained on both English and Mandarin speech, is designed to handle challenging noisy environments (for example, crowded coffee shops or busy airports) better than widely-used, commercial speech systems.

"I believe we can use deep learning and HPC to teach computers, devices and appliances to interact with people far better than they do today," Coates said. "I'm excited about AI because it enables a new level of access to information for populations who are currently underserved by technology -- people in developing economies, for instance. It may seem counterintuitive, but non-technical users actually place higher demands on technology, requiring greater ease of use and reliability. In a sense, it is the non-tech-savvy people who will benefit the most from AI, not people like me who grew up with computers."

"Over the years, we've had success in choosing young innovators whose work has been profoundly influential on the direction of human affairs," said editor in chief and publisher Jason Pontin. "Previous winners include Andrew Ng, chief scientist of Baidu, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the cofounders of Google; Mark Zuckerberg, the cofounder of Facebook; and Jonathan Ive, the chief designer of Apple. We're proud of our selections and the variety of achievements they celebrate, and we're proud to add Adam Coates to this prestigious list."

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