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.

Chinese internet search giant Baidu released a new artificial intelligence reasoning model Sunday and made its AI chatbot services free as ferocious competition grips the sector. Baidu also made the models free to use,

HONG KONG - China's Baidu said on Sunday (March 16) it has launched two new artificial intelligence 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.