The choice of the Chinese technological giant is a threat to Openai, Anthropic and the other western companies, which will have to justify subscription costs. Alec Strasmore, founder of Epic Loot: “The message for the various startups in the world is clear:” Stop paying for exorbitant figures “”
The Chinese technological giant Baidu said he wanted to make open source Its model of language of generative artificial intelligence Ernie Starting today, Monday 30 June. The choice represents a considerable change for Baidu, historically protectionist towards its technology. In fact, an open source model means that the source code is available to the public and can be modified and distributed in different formats. A Baidu spokesman stressed that the open source implementation will be gradual.
The Ernie chatbot had been launched on the Chinese market on August 31, 2023, with a potential audience of a billion and a half users (and without the possibility of access to other western rivals), which contributed to training the new generative artificial intelligence.
What does it mean for the market
Will it be a shock for the market as it was Deepseek, also Chinese and free open source? IA experts are divided on the impact of this decision: some doubt that it will be a “Deepseek moment” for the US market, while others believe that it could consolidate China’s position as the leader of the AI.
Sean Renassociate professor of computer science at the University of Southern California, interviewed by CNBC, underlined how all this is not just a Chinese question, given that “every time an important laboratory makes a powerful model open, the bar rises for the entire sector”.
A threat to the American models
Baidu’s decision is seen as one potential threat to “closed” models suppliers come Openai e Anthropic Because their price strategy is put under pressure.
Alec Strasmorefounder of Epic Loot, said that “Baidu has just launched a Molotov in the world of AI”, predicting that Baidu will offer something equally powerful, but “practically free». «Openai, Anthropic, Deepseek, all those who thought they can sell top quality champagne are about to realize that Baidu is about to give something equally powerful. This is not a competition, but a price declaration of war, “added Strasmore. The message for the various startups in the world is clear: “Stop paying exorbitant figures”. Baidu’s CEO, Robin Li, clarified that the objective of Open Source is to allow developers to create the best applications without worrying about skills, costs or tools.
The Open Source Movement
Baidu had already announced in March that his Ernie X1 model, focused on the reasoning and solution of complex problems, offers services comparable to Deepseek R1, but at half the price. There is no doubt that the open source movement in artificial intelligence represents a threat to the business models of the main actors in the sector. The same CEO of Openai, Sam Altman recognized that The Open Source Movement represents a threat to consolidated business models Explaining that Openai plans to release an Open Source model this summer.
The critical issues
Baidu’s move will force investors to reconsider the dynamics of access costs to IA models. However, there is no shortage of concerns about security, data transparency and trust of the market. In fact, Sean Ren stressed that, although an open source transmits a sense of transparency, the fact that the codes are public does not mean that it becomes exactly on which data the model has been trained, if those who provided the data has provided consent or has been compensated. Finally, a worrying aspect – stressed Strasmore – is that we do not know if the systems are connected to the API (Application Programming Interface) Badiu, that is, a set of protocols that allow different software applications to communicate with each other and exchange functionality: “This would be equivalent to giving China access to all the phones and certainly would be disturbing”.
