China’s Baidu launches two AI models amid rising competition

Hong Kong — China’s Baidu said on Sunday it has launched two new AI models, including a new reasoning-focused model that it said rivalled DeepSeek’s model, as it vies to stand out in a fiercely competitive AI race.

Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek’s rollout of AI models — which it said is on par with, or even better than, industry-leading models in the US at a fraction of the cost — has roiled the industry and re-energised the global AI race.

“ERNIE X1 delivers performance on par with DeepSeek R1 at only half the price,” Baidu said of one of the new models. The X1 has “stronger understanding, planning, reflection and evolution capabilities,” Baidu said, adding that it is the first deep saying model that uses tools autonomously.

Baidu said its latest foundation model ERNIE 4.5 has “excellent multimodal understanding ability. It has more advanced language ability and its understanding, generation, logic and memory abilities are comprehensively improved.”

It also has “high EQ”, and it is easy to understand network memes and satirical cartoons, Baidu said.

One of China’s earliest tech giants to launch a ChatGPT-style chatbot, Baidu has struggled to gain widespread adoption for its Ernie large language model, despite saying performance comparable to OpenAI’s GPT-4, amid fierce competition.

Multimodal AI systems are capable of processing and integrating various types of data including text, video, images and audio, and can convert content across these formats.

Reuters