Overview

• TechRadar’s analysis says Baidu has announced plans to open-source its Ernie model, marking a shift from its earlier preference for closed systems.
• The piece argues Baidu’s institutional scale, funding, and product reach could outpace the impact of DeepSeek’s earlier breakthrough with R1.
• Citing The Information, the article notes DeepSeek has delayed its next-gen R2 due to difficulties obtaining high-end Nvidia GPUs under U.S. export controls.
• Baidu previously claimed Ernie X1 matches DeepSeek-R1’s performance at about half the price, reinforcing a turn from a performance contest to a price war.
• The article cites Ernie’s API at 18% market share versus DeepSeek’s 34% and contends open-sourcing aims to build a global developer base resilient to hardware sanctions.