Chinese search engine giant Baidu announced on Friday that it will open-source its next-generation artificial intelligence model, Ernie, as of June 30. This marks a significant shift in strategy amid intensifying competition.
Baidu's CEO Robin Li, who previously favored closed-source models for AI development, faced pressure from the emergence of DeepSeek, a startup offering open-source AI services. These services claim comparable performance to U.S. pioneer OpenAI's advanced systems at a lower operational cost.
In a bid to expand its market share, Baidu revealed plans to introduce its AI chatbot, Ernie Bot, on April 1, about a year and a half following the debut of premium versions.
Although an early investor in AI post-OpenAI's ChatGPT launch in 2022, Baidu's Ernie large language model has struggled to gain extensive traction. The current version, Ernie 4.0, purportedly matches OpenAI's GPT-4 capabilities.
In China, ByteDance's Doubao chatbot leads with 78.6 million active monthly users, followed by DeepSeek with 33.7 million, and Ernie Bot with 13 million users, according to January data.
Baidu plans to roll out the Ernie 4.5 series gradually in the coming months, with an official open-source release slated for June 30, as shared on WeChat.
Li, speaking at an event in Dubai, indicated a shift in Baidu's open-source stance, suggesting that open-sourcing could foster faster technology adoption: "If you open things up, a lot of people will be curious enough to try it. This will help spread the technology much faster."
Additionally, Baidu is set to launch a new next-generation model, Ernie 5, in the second half of 2025, according to a knowledgeable source.