Baidu to Launch Next-Generation AI Model Amid Market Changes

Men interact with a Baidu AI robot near the company logo at its headquarters in Beijing, China, on April 23, 2021.

BEIJING — Chinese tech giant Baidu is gearing up to unveil the next version of its artificial intelligence model in the second half of this year, as sources reveal, amidst the rising competition from newcomers like DeepSeek.

The upcoming model, named Ernie 5.0, is being referred to as a "foundation model" and is expected to feature significant improvements in multimodal capabilities. While the exact functionalities have not been disclosed, "multimodal" AI refers to systems that can handle and interpret various types of data, such as text, video, images, and audio, allowing the conversion between these formats—for example, transforming text into video.

Foundation models play a crucial role in understanding language and executing a wide variety of tasks, ranging from generating text and images to engaging in natural language conversations.

Baidu's initiative to enhance its AI offerings comes at a time when Chinese businesses are racing to innovate and develop advanced AI models to rival those produced by OpenAI and other American firms. A recent development from Hangzhou-based startup DeepSeek stirred the market by launching an open-source AI model that impressed users with its advanced reasoning capabilities and offered a surprisingly low-cost alternative to OpenAI's ChatGPT.

According to Baidu's CEO, Robin Li, there is a great deal of excitement in the field: "The inference cost of foundation models can essentially be decreased by over 90% within a year." This statement came during a talk at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, which highlighted how such cost reductions correspond to increased productivity.

Since launching its ChatGPT-like chatbot, Ernie, in March 2023, Baidu initially gained traction in the market. However, this momentum has been challenged by other AI chatbots from emerging startups as well as established companies like Alibaba and ByteDance.

In terms of stock performance, while Alibaba has seen its shares rise by 33% this year, Baidu's shares have climbed by only 6%, with Tencent also experiencing a 4% increase.

Currently, Baidu's Ernie model is integrated into various generative AI applications within the company's numerous consumer and business services, such as cloud storage and content creation. Just last month, Baidu announced that its Wenku platform, used for creating presentations and documents, reached 40 million paying users by the end of 2024, marking a 60% increase from the previous year. The platform has started rolling out AI-driven features to help generate presentations based on financial filings as of January.

The current Ernie model is version 4, released in October 2023, while an upgraded turbo version, Ernie 4.0, was launched in August 2024. Although Baidu has not officially confirmed plans for the next iteration, the tech community is eagerly anticipating advancements.

In comparison, OpenAI's latest model, GPT-4o, was released in May 2024, with CEO Sam Altman indicating that there is no defined schedule for the rollout of GPT-5.

Baidu has not yet replied to inquiries for further comment on these developments.

Baidu, AI, DeepSeek