China’s Baidu has added AI and voice features to its Ernie search engine and as of June 30 officially made its generative Ernie large language model open source in a direct challenge to OpenAI and Anthropic as well as local Chinese rival DeepSeek. “This isn’t just a China story. Every time a major lab open-sources a powerful model, it raises the bar for the entire industry,” University of Southern California Associate Professor of Computer Science Sean Ren told CNBC. Baidu is also giving the Ernie mobile app more chatbot-like functionality, enabling it to help with drawing, writing and travel tasks. Continue reading Baidu Delivers AI Updates to Search, Open-Sources Ernie 4.5

Google exited China in 2010, but is now making another pitch to re-enter by promoting its TensorFlow software for building artificial intelligence solutions. Sources say that parent company Alphabet has added staff to look for potential AI investments among Chinese companies. The online Chinese market is the biggest in the world, but Google faces challenges there, not just with homegrown rivals such as Baidu, but the fact that China’s firewall keeps domestic developers from accessing Google’s cloud computing services. Continue reading Google Hopeful for Chinese Re-Entry With TensorFlow for AI