On Friday, Chinese Internet company Baidu announced that it had hired Stanford researcher and previous computer science professor Andrew Ng ’08 as its chief scientist. Ng is also the director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab and co-founder of the massive open online courses (MOOC) platform Coursera.

Known for his work on neural networks, Ng has contributed to projects for Google X and is currently on leave from Stanford. Although he will remain a chairman at Coursera, he also plans on stepping away from the MOOC provider.

As Baidu’s chief scientist, Ng will head research at the company’s artificial intelligence labs in Beijing and Sunnyvale, California. Many consider his transition a sign that artificial intelligence is of growing importance for Internet companies.

With an office in Cupertino, California to support its “Deep Learning Institute,” Baidu is considered China’s leading Internet search engine. CEO Robin Li spoke about Ng’s noteworthy credentials in a prepared statement.

“Andrew is the ideal individual to lead our research efforts as we enter an era where AI plays an increasingly pronounced role,” Li said.