Baidu launches new AI models and makes ERNIE Bot free to all users

Chinese technology giant Baidu has launched two new artificial intelligence models as it seeks to regain momentum in China’s increasingly competitive AI landscape.

The company unveiled ERNIE 4.5, its latest native multimodal foundation model, alongside ERNIE X1, a new deep-thinking reasoning model. Both models are now freely accessible to individual users through ERNIE Bot’s official website, several weeks ahead of the previously announced schedule.

ERNIE X1 is being positioned as a direct competitor to DeepSeek R1, with Baidu claiming it “delivers performance on par with DeepSeek R1 at only half the price.” The new reasoning model excels in areas including Chinese knowledge, literary creation, dialogue, logical reasoning, and complex calculations.

ERNIE 4.5, described as a native multimodal foundation model, demonstrates capabilities in understanding and processing text, images, audio, and video content. Baidu claims the model outperforms GPT-4.5 in multiple benchmarks while being priced at just 1 per cent of its competitor.

For enterprise users and developers, ERNIE 4.5 is now accessible via APIs on Baidu AI Cloud’s MaaS platform Qianfan, with input prices starting at RMB 0.004 per thousand tokens and output prices at RMB 0.016 per thousand tokens. ERNIE X1 will soon be available on the platform with even lower pricing.

The launch comes as Baidu faces intensifying competition in China’s AI sector. Despite being one of the first Chinese companies to launch a ChatGPT-style chatbot, rival offerings from ByteDance and Moonshot AI have reportedly gained more popularity, while open-source models like Alibaba’s Qwen and DeepSeek have achieved greater recognition globally.

Baidu’s AI push has started to show financial results, with a 26 per cent jump in cloud revenue in the December quarter, driven by services provided to developers seeking computing power. However, this growth was overshadowed by weak advertising sales amid China’s economic challenges.

The company plans to progressively integrate both new models into its product ecosystem, including Baidu Search and the Wenxiaoyan app, as it continues to invest in developing more advanced AI capabilities.