Beijing, Mar 16 (V7N) – Chinese tech giant Baidu has unveiled two new artificial intelligence (AI) models, Ernie 4.5 and Ernie X1, aiming to strengthen its position in the competitive AI landscape. The company claims these models outperform OpenAI’s GPT-4o and DeepSeek’s V3 in key benchmark tests.

The multimodal foundational model, Ernie 4.5, was introduced alongside Baidu’s first multimodal reasoning model, Ernie X1. According to Baidu, Ernie 4.5 outperformed OpenAI’s GPT-4o in several benchmark tests, including CCBench and OCRBench, excelling in text, image, audio, and video processing. It also surpassed DeepSeek V3 in multiple text-based benchmarks while remaining comparable to OpenAI’s GPT-4.5.

While Baidu did not disclose specific benchmark results for Ernie X1, the company asserts that it matches DeepSeek’s R1 reasoning model while offering API access at half the price. Businesses can access Ernie X1 for 2 yuan (US$0.28) per million token inputs and 8 yuan per million token outputs, whereas DeepSeek’s R1 costs US$0.55 per million inputs and US$2.19 per million outputs.

Baidu was the first Chinese company to introduce a large language model (LLM) in March 2023, following OpenAI’s ChatGPT. However, it now faces increasing competition from other Chinese tech giants like Alibaba, Tencent, Bytedance, and DeepSeek, which have rapidly expanded their AI user base.

In a significant shift, Baidu CEO Robin Li Yanhong announced last month that Ernie 4.5 will become open-source by June 30. Previously, Baidu had maintained a closed-source AI development strategy, but Li acknowledged that open sourcing helps boost adoption. “When the model is open-source, people naturally want to try it out of curiosity, which helps drive broader adoption,” he said in a February earnings call.

Despite advancements in AI, Baidu’s overall revenue remains under pressure. The company reported a 2% year-on-year decline in total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2024, with full-year revenue down by 1%, mainly due to weak ad revenue.

Baidu’s latest AI developments are expected to strengthen its market presence in China, but competition remains fierce as rival companies continue to invest in AI innovation.

END/MSS/AJ