Dubbed the Chinese equivalent of Google, Baidu is the number one Internet search engine in its home country, China, and the brainchild of Robin Li, who founded the company in a hotel room overlooking Beijing University's campus in 1999 with Eric Xu.

The Chinese search giant began its own site--Baidu.com--in September 2001 and offered advertising space on its site before Google did.

By 2004, Baidu turned a profit and the company went public in the United States in August 2005.

Baidu inked a partnership with Intel in April this year, to develop Internet applications for a variety of computing devices.

Aside from fighting off fierce competition from search giants Google and Yahoo, Baidu also has to deal with the problem of illegal music downloads. In November this year, the search giant was cleared of helping users download music illegally by the Chinese court.

Baidu.com ranks among ZDNet Asia's Top 10 fastest-growing companies for 2006/07.