China's Baidu said on Sunday it has launched two new artificial intelligence models, including a new reasoning-focused model that it said rivalled DeepSeek's model, as it vies to stand out in a fiercely competitive AI race.

Chinese internet search giant Baidu released a new artificial intelligence reasoning model Sunday and made its AI chatbot services free to consumers as ferocious competition grips the sector. Baidu faces stiff competition in the consumer-facing AI sector where startup DeepSeek shook up the industry at home and abroad with a model that performed comparably to competitors such as US-made ChatGPT,