China's Baidu Unveils Free AI Model to Rival DeepSeek
On Sunday, Chinese internet powerhouse Baidu unveiled a fresh artificial intelligence reasoning model and announced that their AI chatbot services would be available for free amid intense rivalry within the industry.
Tech firms in China have been rushing to unveil enhanced AI platforms after startup DeepSeek stunned competitors with its open-source and notably budget-friendly model back in January.
In a WeChat posting, Baidu revealed that their newest X1 reasoning model — which they assert functions comparably to DeepSeek’s at a reduced expense — along with an updated foundational model called Ernie 4.5, are now accessible through their AI chatbot, Ernie Bot.
Baidu released the models for free usage over two weeks earlier than planned. In the past, users were required to subscribe monthly to gain access to the firm’s most recent AI models.
The firm based in Beijing became one of the earliest Chinese companies to launch a public generative AI platform in 2023. However, competing chatbots from rivals like ByteDance, which owns TikTok, and Moonshot AI have attracted more users since then.
In the realm of consumer-focused artificial intelligence, Baidu encounters strong competition from startups like DeepSeek. This new entrant has disrupted both domestic and international markets with an AI model that matches the performance of rivals including the U.S.-developed ChatGPT, yet was considerably cheaper to create.
Following this trend, numerous Chinese businesses and governmental organizations quickly adopted DeepSeek's open-source model for their operations. Meanwhile, competing tech firms have been striving to close the gap.
Baidu itself has integrated DeepSeek's R1 reasoning model into its search engine.
In February, Tencent, the company behind WeChat, unveiled a new AI model that purportedly responds to inquiries more swiftly than DeepSeek, despite integrating its competitor's technology into its messaging platform.
In the same month, having teamed up with Apple to create artificial intelligence for the latter’s smartphones in China, Alibaba announced an investment of 380 billion yuan ($52 billion) in AI technology over the coming three-year period.
This month, Alibaba also launched an updated version of its AI assistant application, which is driven by their open-source Qwen reasoning model.
Baidu has similarly declared its intention to make its Ernie AI models open-source starting from June 30, following in DeepSeek's footsteps.
