Baidu, the leading Chinese search engine company, will make its artificial intelligence model Ernie open-source to users starting June 30.

Reuters reported that the initiative centers on an upcoming family of Ernie models dubbed the Ernie 4.5 series. Baidu will start rolling out the LLM series to users in the coming months and plans to open-source its code on June 30.

Baidu on Friday said the next generation of its Ernie LLM will be open source from June 30, according to a statement from the Beijing-based company, in a 180-degree turn from founder, chairman and chief executive Robin Li Yanhong’s long-held backing of closed-source AI development.