Chinese search engine company Baidu says Lin Yuanqing is the new director of Baidu's Institute of Deep Learning and is reporting to Chief Scientist of Baidu Research Wu Enda.

Prior to joining Baidu, Lin led the Media Analytics Department at NEC Labs America. His team was mainly engaged in computer vision research related to mobile search and driverless cars.

Commenting on the joining of Lin, Wu said they are thrilled and Lin will bring advanced technologies to Baidu's research institutes in Beijing and Silicon Valley.

Lin is an active expert in the computer vision and machine learning sectors. He gained his Master's degree in optical engineering at Tsinghua University; and he gained Ph.D. in electrical engineering at University of Pennsylvania.

Institute of Deep Learning is a research institution under Baidu Research, which also includes an artificial intelligence lab led by Adam Coates and a big data lab led by Zhang Tong.