Up until the launch of DeepSeek last month, Ernie Bot was widely seen as the closest Chinese rival to ChatGPT

Research firm Canalys expects that 5% of smartphones shipped globally in 2024, or 60 million smartphones will be AI-capable

The milestone comes just three months after the chatbot was opened to the public following months of trials and scrutiny from Beijing

"Until our company's official announcement, any Ernie app you see from App Store or other stores are fake," the Chinese search engine giant said in a statement

The format was changed to satisfy the 'strong demand' from 120,000 companies that had applied to test Ernie Bot, the search giant said

Ernie bot responded in a similar manner to questions about China's 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown and the treatment of Uyghur Muslims