Baidu to make latest Ernie AI model open-source as competition heats up

Chinese search engine giant Baidu said on Friday it would make its next-generation artificial intelligence model Ernie open-source from June 30, a major shift in strategy as competition heats up.

Baidu CEO Robin Li had long advocated for closed-source models as the only viable path for AI development, but the advent of DeepSeek has upended the sector. The startup offers open-source AI services that it claims are comparable in performance to US pioneer OpenAI’s advanced systems but come with a lower operational cost.