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, the leading Chinese search engine company, will make its artificial intelligence model Ernie open-source to users starting June 30. Robin Li, Baidu’s CEO, has long favored closed-source models.

DeepSeek is spurring competitors at home and abroad to consider an open-source strategy in artificial intelligence (AI) development, following the Chinese start-up's release of powerful low-cost models that upended how large language models (LLMs) are trained.