Follow Us "Baidu Claims Latest Ernie Model Surpasses OpenAI's GPT 4.5, But Retail Stays On The Sidelines For Now")
Baidu said the launches underscore its commitment to continued investment in developing smarter and more powerful next-gen foundation models.
Chinese search engine Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) launched two new artificial intelligence (AI) models over the weekend, emphasizing the strong inroads the country has been making in the arena.
The company’s latest foundation models include native multimodal foundation model ERNIE 4.5 and deep-thinking reasoning model ERNIE X1. Individual users can now freely access these two models through ERNIE Bot official website.
Enterprise users and developers can access ERNIE 4.5 via APIs on Baidu AI Cloud’s mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) platform, Qianfan. The company said ERNIE X1 would be available on the platform soon.
Baidu said the launches underscore its commitment to continued investment in developing smarter and more powerful next-gen foundation models. The Beijing-based company plans to progressively integrate both ERNIE and X1 into its product ecosystem, including its Baidu Search, the Wenxiaoyan app and other offerings.
The Chinese company touted ERNIE 4.5’s outperformance versus OpenAI GPT-4.5 in multiple benchmarks and competitiveness, offering it at just 1% of the latter’s price. The research preview of OpenAI GPT-4.5 was released in late February
Baidu said its ERNIE X1 has enhanced understanding, planning, reflection, and evolution capabilities. It is capable of tool use and excels in Chinese knowledge Q&A, literary creation, manuscript writing, dialogue, logical reasoning, and complex calculations.
Chinese companies have stepped up their AI foundation model initiatives in recent months. AI startup DeepSeek launched its DeepSeek-R1 reasoning model in January and released a chatbot based on the R1 model. Earlier this month, Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) announced its own AI reasoning model, dubbed QwQ-32B.
On Stocktwits, sentiment toward Baidu stock improved to ‘neutral’ (45/100) from the ‘bearish’ mood that prevailed a day ago. The new model launches did not stir retail conversation, which remained at ‘low’ levels.
A watcher expressed disappointment at the muted stock reaction in overnight hours.
Another user pointed out that the previous iterations of the ERNIE foundation model did not generate positive sentiment toward the stock.
Baidu stock has gained over 11% so far this year.
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