When it comes to autonomous driving, almost everyone thinks U.S. tech giants like Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL), Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) and others are leading the charge.

Those big tech companies are making big time moves in autonomous driving. But the self-driving conversation would be incomplete without including China tech giant Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU), the digital search giant that is arguably the global leader in self-driving.

Yes. That is right. There is an argument for Baidu self-driving as being the world’s premiere self-driving program. Here’s the evidence.

In March, Baidu became the first company to receive licenses to conduct open road tests for autonomous driving vehicles in Beijing. A month later, Baidu partnered with Meituan-Dianping to test self-driving food delivery cars. Two months thereafter, Baidu announced big partnerships with BMW China and Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) on the self-driving front. And most recently, Baidu is teaming up with SoftBank-owned SB Drive to jump into the Japanese self-driving buses game.

Overall, over the past several months, Baidu self-driving has made some serious progress on making self-driving reality.

These steps for Baidu will continue over the next several years. Why? Data. Data is the basis of artificial intelligence (AI) and self-driving. Baidu has all the data. Therefore, Baidu is the future of AI and self-driving in China.

Is Baidu self-driving a reason to buy Baidu stock here and now? Absolutely. This is a big growth company with a not-that-big valuation.

Here’s deeper look.

Self-Driving Is a Promising Runway

When it comes to AI and self-driving, data is everything. You need data to train AI to make it truly adaptive to different situations. Baidu, as China’s go-to digital search platform, has a huge data set which will prove immensely valuable and useful in developing AI and self-driving solutions over the next several years.

No one in China has a data set to rival Baidu’s. And outside of Google, not many other companies in the world have a data set which rivals Baidu’s.

Thus, when it comes to self-driving, Baidu and Google have the most promising long-term growth trajectories. It isn’t surprising then to see that these companies are presently the leaders in the self-driving game. (In addition to all the partnerships Baidu self-driving has, Google’s Waymo unit is on the verge of launching a self-driving ride-hailing service.)

Baidu’s recent partnership with SoftBank involving self-driving buses in Japan is just the latest chapter in the promising Baidu self-driving growth narrative. According to the Nikkei Asian Review, Baidu and SoftBank plan to have a self-driving bus model that will go into testing by the end of the year, and further plan to ship 10 buses by 2019.

That is an exciting development for Baidu self-driving. It means that Baidu is touching all parts of the self-driving narrative. From the Apollo software to autonomous vehicles to smart vehicles to autonomous buses, Baidu is everywhere you look in the self-driving space.

Because of the company’s unique and powerful data advantage, Baidu will remain at the epicenter of the self-driving revolution for the foreseeable future.

Self-Driving Will Power BIDU Stock Higher

Self-driving is cool and all. But is it a financially viable reason to buy Baidu stock?

Absolutely. Self-driving projects to be one of the biggest growth markets over the next several years. The self-driving market in China, where Baidu is king, projects to be the biggest self-driving market in the world, mostly due to population size.

Therefore, Baidu is the leader in the biggest market in a category that projects to be one of the biggest growth spaces over the next several years.

That is pretty exciting. And it’s on top of Baidu’s already rapidly growing digital search and advertising business — which is growing at a healthy 30%-plus rate.

Meanwhile, Baidu stock is pretty cheap. The stock trades at just 24-times forward earnings. That multiple doesn’t seem to fully reflect Baidu’s robust digital advertising business — 30%-plus growth — let alone incorporate any upside from Baidu self-driving.

Recent weakness in shares can be attributed to Baidu losing a top exec who many investors viewed as the company’s “AI guy.” But one guy doesn’t make up an entire operation, and Baidu self-driving and Baidu AI have continued to make big progress in his absence. Thus, this recent weakness is a buying opportunity, and shares should bounce here as sentiment normalizes.

Bottom Line on BIDU Stock

Baidu’s digital advertising business is a big growth business that isn’t fairly valued at a 24 forward multiple. Throw in Baidu AI and Baidu self-driving, and all the sudden, the 24 forward multiple on BIDU stock seems anemic.

Buy the dip? I think so.

As of this writing, Luke Lango was long GOOG, TSLA, and BIDU.