March 17, 2025, 02:33 AM PDT – Baidu unveiled its latest AI innovations, ERNIE 4.5 and ERNIE X1, on March 16, 2025, aiming to strengthen its position in China’s fierce AI competition and take on global leaders like OpenAI. The announcement, shared through a press release and Baidu’s X post, highlights the models’ advanced capabilities and affordability, as reported by Reuters.
So, what’s the big news? ERNIE 4.5 is a multimodal foundation model, handling text, images, audio, and video with enhanced reasoning, memory, and coding abilities, surpassing OpenAI’s GPT-4.5 in some tests, according to TechCrunch. ERNIE X1, a reasoning-focused model, matches DeepSeek R1’s performance but costs half as much, making it attractive for businesses, per Business Insider. Both models are now accessible via Baidu’s ERNIE Bot, which Baidu made free for individuals ahead of schedule, as detailed in PR Newswire.
For enterprises, ERNIE 4.5 is available through APIs on Baidu AI Cloud’s Qianfan platform, with ERNIE X1 forthcoming, priced as low as $0.55 per million input tokens for ERNIE 4.5, per Bloomberg. This pricing strategy positions Baidu to compete with domestic rivals like ByteDance and international giants, amid a heated AI race in China, as noted by TechCrunch. Baidu plans to integrate these models into its ecosystem, including Baidu Search and Wenxiaoyan, while opening ERNIE 4.5’s source code in the coming months, per Reuters.
The launch reflects Baidu’s response to competitors like DeepSeek, which has gained traction with open-source models. ERNIE 4.5 and X1 use cutting-edge tech like FlashMask Dynamic Attention Masking, but they also face scrutiny over data privacy and China’s AI regulations, as Baidu navigates a complex market. For now, this is a significant step for Baidu, aiming to reclaim leadership in AI innovation.
What does this mean moving forward? It could shake up the global AI landscape, but it also raises questions about ethics, competition, and regulation. I’ll keep watching to see how ERNIE X1 and 4.5 stack up against rivals like OpenAI’s next moves.
