It never ceases to amaze me how many americans completely overlook this in their blind patriotism. Baidu today may well be the only company able to challenge Google's strength on the search engine land, and an effective monopoly (i.e. if Google got their way with China and toppled Baidu) would be sad for mankind. Here's hoping instead that a breath of american mindset at Baidu can slowly make it reach out of China and who knows, challenge Google with (non-censored as in China, and non-NSA'd as in Google) english results.
Given Baidu's long history of being "cooperative" with Government, I cannot support such a company to be an effective competitor to Google. Besides, deep learning is about far more than just search.
Every company has to be cooperative with its government, or relocate/close.
It just happens that Google isn't based in China, therefore they were able to make the decision not to expand to China.
But in the US, Google will have to accept basically anything the government demands, as long as it is backed by the courts. (which isn't that hard since the government just invents secret courts based on secret laws that back almost 100% of the governments demands)
