- Baidu launched new AI models on Sunday, including its first model focused on reasoning.
- While experts and markets responded positively, the releases underscore Baidu’s efforts to catch up in China’s competitive AI landscape.
- “Baidu is clearly in catch-up mode, largely due to its slow pace of innovation and underestimation of rapid market shifts,” said Wei Sun, principal AI analyst at Counterpoint Research.
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Chinese tech giant Baidu has unveiled two new free-to-use artificial intelligence models as it strives to reclaim its top spot in the country’s highly competitive AI sector.
Launched on Sunday, the models include Baidu’s first reasoning-focused AI and signal the company’s shift toward an open-source strategy.
However, experts told CNBC that while this release strengthens Baidu’s position, it also underscores the company’s efforts to catch up. Its Ernie bot—one of China’s first ChatGPT-like chatbots—has struggled to achieve widespread adoption.
“The new models make Baidu more competitive since the company has been lagging behind in a reasoning model release,” Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at Omdia, told CNBC.
Reasoning models are advanced language models that break down tasks into smaller steps and evaluate multiple approaches before responding, allowing them to process complex problems similarly to human reasoning.
China’s AI landscape shifted dramatically in January when startup DeepSeek released its R1 reasoning model. Despite its lower costs, R1 rivaled American AI models, intensifying competition in the global AI race.
Baidu claims its new ERNIE X1 reasoning model matches the performance of DeepSeek R1 at half the cost while offering enhanced understanding, planning, reflection, and evolution capabilities. However, CNBC has not independently verified this assertion.
Wei Sun, principal AI analyst at Counterpoint Research, noted that Baidu's future competitiveness depends on whether its models truly deliver on their promised performance and cost benefits.
“Baidu is clearly in catch-up mode, largely due to its slow innovation pace and underestimating rapid market shifts,” Sun said.
Background
Baidu introduced its first generative AI platform to the public in 2023, positioning it as one of China’s initial responses to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Despite early traction, Baidu’s Ernie product has since been overtaken by competitors, including startups and major tech firms like Alibaba and ByteDance.
Experts cite several factors behind Baidu’s lagging innovation..........
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