China's rival to ChatGPT, Ernie Bot, has garnered more than 200 million users according to tech giants Baidu.

[Voiceover]

The Ernie Bot, Baidu's answer in the global AI race, has garnered 200 million users.

13 months after the Ernie Bot's public debut, it has now emerged as China's leading AI foundation model with the broadest range of applications.

[Standup]

Xu Hua, Reporter:

"According to Baidu, about 26,000 businesses are actively accessing Ernie's capabilities on a monthly basis. Let's check out how Ernie is empowering certain industries."

[Soundbite]

Li Lei, Corporate Strategy and Finance Director, DeepWay Technology:

"Based on Baidu's Apollo navigation system, we are currently conducting advanced autonomous driving technologies and research. We have delivered more than 700 units of our trucks nationwide."

[Soundbite]

Wang Ruoli, Creator, WenxinYige:

"I can finish such a painting in about 30 seconds, and then make a design quickly, which can help us improve our work efficiency."

[Soundbite]

Sotirios Stasinopoulos, Product Manager, UBTECH Robotics:

"We are integrating the Baidu models, Ernie bot from the platform Qianfan in order to make the robot understand better its environment and its visual abilities."

[Voiceover]

To try to gain an upper hand in the global rush to develop AI capabilities, Baidu on Tuesday unveiled three AI development toolkits: AgentBuilder, AppBuilder and ModelBuilder.

The company is also offering a prize of 50 million yuan in a new round of its AI development competition.

[Soundbite]

Robin Li, Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Baidu:

"In the future, natural language will emerge as the new programming language. Simply being able to speak can make you a developer, empowering you to shape the world with your creativity."

[Soundbite]

Zhou Zean, Founder, BiYOO Technology:

"The three major toolkits released by Baidu almost cover all walks of life, as a low-level model, or general technical services. As long as you want to access AI, you can improve the efficiency and reduce the cost for your industry."

[Voiceover]

Apart from Baidu, other leading Chinese enterprises such as Huawei and Alibaba have also increased investment in research and development, to accelerate the pace of AI development.

[Restrictions : No access Chinese mainland]