Baidu CEO Robin Li made an exciting announcement on Tuesday, revealing that the company’s Ernie bot, akin to ChatGPT, has soared past the remarkable milestone of 200 million users.

Li unveiled plans for another round of their esteemed AI development competition, offering an enticing prize of 50 million yuan ($7 million)

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Li showcased three powerful development tools—AgentBuilder, AppBuilder, and ModelBuilder to empower users to seamlessly create and integrate AI-driven chatbots with Baidu’s web search platform.

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Eight months ago, the public was first given access to the Ernie Bot. As Baidu released its most recent update in the month of December, the user base has nearly doubled.

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Alibaba’s Chairman, Joe Tsai, echoed similar sentiments earlier this month, estimating that China lags approximately two years behind the U.S. in AI advancement.

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