Baidu Inc. released a new artificial intelligence model that articulates its reasoning, in an apparent bid to regain momentum against up-and-coming rivals like DeepSeek.The Ernie X1 model by China’s internet search leader works similarly to DeepSeek R1 — which shocked Silicon Valley by offering comparable performance to the world’s best chatbots at a fraction of their development cost.

BEIJING: China's Baidu said on Sunday (Mar 16) it has launched two new artificial intelligence (AI) models, including a new reasoning-focused model that it said rivalled DeepSeek's model, as it vies to stand out in a fiercely competitive AI race.

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 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.

The world was just getting used to Chinese AI company DeepSeek being cheaper and better than many AI models released in the west, but it's now been upstaged -- and by another Chinese company at

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