BEIJING (Reuters) -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.

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.

The company, the operator of China’s most popular search engine, announced the plan today. Reuters reported that the initiative centers on an upcoming family of Ernie models dubbed the Ernie 4.5 series. Baidu will start rolling out the LLM series to users in the coming months and plans to open-source its code on June 30.