Baidu has launched a new artificial intelligence model, "Ernie X1," which clearly demonstrates its capabilities in the field of reasoning, as part of an effort to regain momentum against rising competitors like DeepSeek.
اضافة اعلان
The "Ernie X1" model from Baidu, the leading Chinese research company, works similarly to DeepSeek’s "R1" model, which shocked Silicon Valley with its performance matching the best chatbots in the world, while costing only a fraction of the development price.
According to a statement from the company on Sunday, Baidu's "thinking" model excels in areas such as daily conversations, complex calculations, and logical inference.
Free Access to Baidu's Chatbots
Baidu also updated its core flagship model to "Ernie 4.5" and immediately provided users with free access to all levels of its chatbots, including the "X1" model, several weeks ahead of the originally scheduled release.
The company, headquartered in Beijing, was the first in China’s trillion-dollar tech sector to launch a chatbot designed similarly to OpenAI's "ChatGPT." However, competing chatbots from companies like ByteDance and Moonshot AI have quickly gained larger popularity.
Open-source models like Alibaba’s "Qwen" and DeepSeek have also gained wider recognition in the global developer community.
A Model That Outperforms ChatGPT
Baidu stated that its "Ernie 4.5" model outperforms the latest OpenAI version, GPT 4.5, in text generation, citing several industry standards.
Baidu also announced that it would make its "Ernie AI" models open-source starting June 30, marking a significant strategic shift following DeepSeek's rise. Additionally, the "R1" model has been integrated into its search engine, which is considered the core of its business.
AI Boom in Baidu's Cloud Service Revenue
Baidu’s generative AI boom was reflected in its Q4 results, which showed a 26% jump in cloud service revenues. However, this growth, driven by services provided to developers seeking computational power, was offset by weaker advertising sales amid an economic downturn in China.
Last month, Baidu completed an extended acquisition deal for the live-streaming platform "YY" from Joyy Inc., valued at $2.1 billion. The acquisition released about $1.6 billion that Baidu had previously deposited into escrow accounts, which it plans to invest in AI infrastructure and cloud computing.
