Tech giant says reasoning model Ernie X1 ‘delivers performance on par with DeepSeek R1 at only half the price’.

Chinese internet search giant Baidu released a new artificial intelligence reasoning model Sunday and made its AI chatbot services free to consumers as ferocious competition grips the sector. Baidu faces stiff competition in the consumer-facing AI sector where startup DeepSeek shook up the industry at home and abroad with a model that performed comparably to competitors such as US-made ChatGPT,

Baidu was among the first Chinese tech giants to roll out generative AI to the public in 2023,. But startups like DeepSeek have shaken up the industry with open-source models that are highly efficient and cost-effective.

Chinese internet search giant Baidu released a new artificial intelligence reasoning model Sunday and made its AI chatbot services free to consumers as ferocious competition grips the