The signal significance of Baidu's embrace of MCP

Written by

Silas Grey

Updated on:July-09th-2025

Recently, Baidu Maps released the MCP server

As the first map service provider in China to support the MCP protocol, after the release of Baidu Map MCP Server, developers only need to make simple configurations to quickly access map services in large models, and realize capabilities such as finding surrounding locations and planning travel routes. This greatly reduces the threshold for calling map service-related capabilities during the development of intelligent applications and significantly improves the development efficiency of intelligent applications.
Official account: Apollo smart driving is the first in China, Baidu Maps core API is fully compatible with MCP protocol

Baidu Maps chose 2A between 2C and 2B.

This move strengthens Baidu Maps' 2B business model by making its API business more attractive to intelligent agent developers, but it replaces the behavior of C users directly accessing map websites or apps. MCP shell intelligent agents are expected to become the next wave of entrepreneurial opportunities for large-scale shell applications. They are expected to divert Baidu Maps' C-end traffic, because natural language-based interactions, as well as experience optimization and combinatorial innovation for segmented scenarios, will make map apps look outdated.

To some extent, this move can be understood as part of Baidu Smart Cloud's embrace of MCP. The following announcement was actually released one day earlier than Baidu Maps (March 20), but no similar announcements have been seen from Alibaba, Huoshan, or Tencent. What are they hesitating about?

Baidu Smart Cloud Qianfan AppBuilder is now compatible with the MCP protocol! As the first large-scale model application development platform in China that is compatible with the MCP protocol, users can easily call the massive tools in the MCP Server ecosystem through the Qianfan AppBuilder SDK, and quickly expand the number of tools on the end and cloud. At the same time, components developed based on the Qianfan AppBuilder SDK can also be seamlessly converted to the MCP Server mode, which is convenient for other developers to call and realize efficient sharing of the tool ecosystem.
Official account: Baidu Smart Cloud is the first in China! Qianfan AppBuilder is fully compatible with MCP protocol

In the map field, Baidu Maps is the second largest player. After Baidu Maps MCP was released on the 21st, the largest player AutoNavi launched MCP Sever on the 23rd. This is the magic of competition. A similar story happened to Meituan and JD.com a few days ago. It is precisely because of the existence of competition that the inevitability of the industry is not subject to individual will. Do you want to follow or not? If you don't, your competitors will. You have to follow even if you don't want to! Otherwise, the market will be handed over to others.

The impact of this incident seems to be limited to the technology circle. But I am excited because it provides a footnote to my prediction of the era of intelligent agents during the Spring Festival:

This article systematically analyzes how new technological conditions subvert the platform-dominated consumer Internet landscape. First, it describes the three key characteristics of the intelligent-driven consumer Internet: dark traffic, screening algorithms, and intent networks; second, looking back at the present, it points out the three major consequences of platform hollowing out, network effects and platform decoupling, and the twilight of super apps.
Hou Hong, WeChat Official Account: Hou Hong Wencun Platform Elegy: Transformation of Consumer Internet in the Era of Intelligent Bodies

Below, I continue to quote the passage from the article (in italics), and its meaning is more real in the context of this article.

"Dark traffic" can be defined as traffic generated by AI agents that is visible in traditional traffic statistics but does not actually reflect the real user attention allocation... The essence of dark traffic is the result of human will being infinitely replicated through agents... It will have a profound impact on the application form. For example, those beautiful pages on e-commerce pages designed to mobilize user sensory emotions may no longer be important, and the platform may degenerate into a huge form with API as the interactive interface.

The dark traffic of map apps is just the beginning.

Under these new conditions, the source of player power is clear: knowledge/know-how. The only thing that is scarce is knowledge, and agents give knowledge the power to act and benefit from it. Individuals use their private knowledge to drive personal agents to take action and obtain consumption surplus; product/service/capability providers use their private knowledge to improve quality and obtain production surplus; intent parsers rely on their professional know-how to develop optimal solutions for complex consumer intent and obtain service surplus.

Baidu Maps and Amap can actively embrace this trend because their accumulated knowledge (maps and POIs, etc.) is scarce, allowing them to benefit from dark traffic. The future competition is a competition of knowledge, not a competition of network effects. The intelligent agent will call the service of whoever can provide deeper and more accurate knowledge, and there is no transfer cost. However, those platforms that exist only as intermediaries may not even be able to do this in the future. As I mentioned in my article:

The so-called platform hollowing out means that the platform does not create unique private knowledge. This statement is not a trend, but a fact. It's just that this fact is obscured by the narrative of the past. It understands neither demand nor supply, and is just a high-tech shell occupying a place where both supply and demand are strong.

For example, compared to the official platforms of 12306 and major airlines, can Ctrip provide private knowledge? No, it only provides the convenience of aggregation. Why is aggregation convenient? Because users have limited time. But people are not free, while agents are. When 12306 and major airlines (or TravelSky) launch MCP servers, what is the value of Ctrip? What if major hotels also launch MCP servers?

Let's end this article with the following figure. The intelligent economy is divided into the supply side and the consumption side. On the supply side, service providers, tool providers, resource owners, and expertise owners all have MCP servers, forming an open network for mutual calls based on the MCP open protocol; on the demand side, each consumer has an intelligent assistant, which, based on the tasks assigned by the consumer, calls the relevant context from SIMs (personal identity modules) on the one hand, and scans the supply ecosystem to integrate the best supply on the other hand.