The launch comes as its latest effort to gain an edge amid growing competition in AI application front, further intensified by the emergence of DeepSeek.

China's Baidu said on Sunday 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.

Chinese tech company Baidu said on Sunday it has launched two new artificial intelligence (AI) models, which are said to offer the same performance as the Chinese chatbot DeepSeek but at half the cost.

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.

Chinese internet search giant Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) launched its latest foundation model Ernie 4.5 and the deep-thinking reasoning model Ernie X1. The company noted that AI chatbot Ernie Bot has been made free to the public ahead of schedule — the slated date was April 1 — and users can now access both models on Ernie Bot free of charge.