Beijing, China |:
Chinese internet search enormous Baidu freed a novel synthetic intelligence reasoning model Sunday and made its AI chatbot services free as ferocious competition grips the sector.
Technology companies in China have been scrambling to free betterd AI platcreates since begin-up DeepSeek shocked its rivals with its uncover source and highly cost-effective model in January.
Baidu proclaimd in a WeChat post that its tardyst X1 reasoning model — which the company claims percreates analogously to DeepSeek’s but for drop cost — and a novel establishation model, Ernie 4.5, were useable via its AI chatbot Ernie Bot.
Baidu also made the models free to engage, more than two weeks ahead of schedule. Previously, engagers had to pay a monthly subscription to access the company’s tardyst AI models.
The Beijing-based company was one of China’s first to roll out a generative AI platcreate disclosely, in 2023, but rival chatbots from companies such as TikTok owner ByteDance and Moonsboiling AI have since geted more engagers.
Baidu faces stiff competition in the devourr-facing AI sector where beginup DeepSeek shook up the industry at home and awide with a model that percreateed comparably to competitors such as US-made ChatGPT, but cost much less to grow.
Since then, Chinese companies and local regulatement agencies have rushed to integrate DeepSeek’s uncover-source model into their labor, while other technology companies have been take parting catch-up.
Baidu itself has fused DeepSeek’s R1 reasoning model into its search engine.
In February, WeChat owner Tencent freed a novel AI model that it claimed answers queries rapider than DeepSeek, even as it integrated its rival’s technology into its messaging platcreate.
The same month, Alibaba, which has partnered with Apple to grow AI for the US company’s phones in China, said it would spend 380 billion yuan ($52 billion) in AI over the next three years.
Alibaba this month also freed a novel version of its AI aidant app powered by its uncover-source Qwen reasoning model.
Baidu has also proclaimd set ups to trail DeepSeek’s direct by making its Ernie AI models uncover-source from June 30.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is rerented from a syndicated feed.)
