China’s Baidu launches free AI models to rival DeepSeek
Chinese tech firm Baidu released two artificial intelligence models to rival DeepSeek and other competitors.
The first is ERNIE X1 which matches DeepSeek R1’s performance “at only half the price.”
READ: Should you use the trending AI chatbot DeepSeek?
The other is ERNIE 4.5, which Baidu says “has more advanced language ability, and its understanding, generation, logic and memory abilities are comprehensively improved.”
Baidu vs. DeepSeek vs. ChatGPT
Ernie 4.5 is Baidu’s latest multimodal foundational model covering images, audio and video.
South China Morning Post says 4.5 outperforms OpenAI’s GPT-4o and DeepSeek V3 on several benchmarks like CCBench and OCRBench.
Business news platform Asia Financial reports Baidu’s multimodal AI also has “high EQ.”
As a result, it can easily understand network memes and satirical cartoons.
On the other hand, Baidu designed ERNIE X1 for tool use and complex reasoning.
It supports various tools like Baidu’s academic search and business information search.
Moreover, X1 can perform these tasks:
- Advanced search
- Document-based Q&A
- AI-generated image interpretation
- Code execution
- Web page analysis
More importantly, Baidu’s AI models are available for free on the official ERNIE bot website.
In contrast, DeepSeek is also free, while the free version of ChatGPT offers limited features.
Baidu stands out in the AI space as its API access costs are lower than more prominent competitors.
API stands for “Application Programming Interface,” which allows a program to control another autonomously.
APIs are essential for programmers as they enable them to create more sophisticated use cases for these AI models.
Overall, these innovations show that China is maintaining its tech dominance by providing better artificial intelligence than other nations.
These developments will fuel more intense competition among tech firms.
As a result, we would likely see more groundbreaking products and services from the latest AI tools.
