US shares of the Chinese tech giant Baidu gained after the company revealed its Ernie X1 model, said to be as capable and more cost efficient than DeepSeek.

Baidu introduced Ernie X1, a reasoning model that can support tools such as advanced search, generation of AI images, and webpage reading.

Chinese tech giant Baidu said it has launched two artificial intelligence models, including the ERNIE X1, which it claims delivers the same performance as DeepSeek R1 “at only half the price.”