Baidu's two new free super AIs challenge Deepseek and OpenAI.

(CLO) Baidu has just announced two new AI models, Ernie 4.5 and Ernie X1, aiming to compete directly with strong rivals like DeepSeek and OpenAI in the increasingly fierce artificial intelligence race.

According to an announcement on March 16th, Ernie 4.5 is a multimodal AI model capable of processing text, images, audio, and video . Baidu claims that this model surpasses OpenAI's GPT-4.5 in several benchmarks such as CCBench and OCRBench. In terms of text processing capabilities, Ernie 4.5 is rated slightly higher than DeepSeek V3 and nearly on par with OpenAI's GPT-4.5.

Meanwhile, the Ernie X1 is designed specifically for reasoning capabilities and is promoted by Baidu as achieving performance comparable to the DeepSeek R1 but at a significantly lower cost.

Baidu offers Ernie 4.5 and Ernie X1 free of charge to general users to expand reach and promote the popularization of AI. For businesses wishing to use it via API, Baidu applies a separate fee. Specifically, the Ernie X1 API costs 2 yuan (US$0.28) per million token inputs and 8 yuan (US$1.12) per million token outputs.

Logo of the AI ​​chatbot Ernie. Photo: X/Baidu_Inc

The emergence of DeepSeek with its high-performance, low-cost AI models has dramatically altered the AI ​​market in China and globally. Many Chinese companies and local government agencies have quickly integrated DeepSeek's models into their systems, putting pressure on major technology companies like Baidu, Tencent, and Alibaba in the race to catch up.

Notably, Baidu, which previously opposed open-source AI, has now changed its stance. Robin Li Yanhong, the company's founder and CEO, stated that Ernie 4.5 will be open-sourced on June 30th. He acknowledged that open source could promote wider adoption and adoption, a lesson learned from DeepSeek.

Despite significant progress in AI, Baidu still faces financial challenges as advertising revenue declines. In Q4 2024, the company's revenue decreased by 2% year-on-year, resulting in a 1% decrease for the entire year. Meanwhile, competitors like ByteDance and Moonshot AI are attracting more and more users, creating further challenges for Baidu in the consumer AI market.

The fact that Chinese AI models are competing on par with, or even surpassing, products from OpenAI or Google in some evaluation criteria demonstrates the strong breakthrough of the Chinese technology industry. With the trend towards open source and cost optimization, the AI ​​race in China is hotter than ever.

Ngoc Anh (according to SCMP, CNA)

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/hai-sieu-ai-mien-phi-moi-cua-baidu-thach-thuc-deepseek-va-openai-post338752.html