As competition in the AI market becomes fiercer, Baidu launches new AI models to rival DeepSeek’s impact
Baidu hopes to stand neck-to-neck with its competitors, especially DeepSeek, in the AI race. With the launch of its two new models, including a new reasoning one, China’s tech giant is vying to get back in the game.
The competition is heating up as tech powerhouses aim to deliver updated AI models to better their predecessors and rival similar products in the market.
Baidu is known primarily for being one of the very first tech companies to launch a ChatGPT-style chatbot. And its new models promise to be better and more cost-effective.
DeepSeek’s rollout had taken a huge toll on the market as its developers introduced it as a highly capable AI tool, one that rivals ChatGPT but at a fraction of its price. This instigated an entire debate on whether AI models and infrastructure can actually be developed at a cheaper rate.
Now, it is Baidu’s turn to make an impression.
Its Ernie X1 model is said to have capabilities similar to DeepSeek’s R1 model and is available at a fraction of the cost.
X1 can understand, reflect, plan, and adapt better, whereas the second model, Ernie 4.5, has seamless multimodal understanding capabilities. And the latter’s understanding, reasoning, thinking, and memory have been significantly improved.
However, even after housing the first model that knows how to leverage tools autonomously, Baidu has failed to gain widespread recognition.
Amidst the fierce competition, Baidu remains behind the curtains. Ernie, the large language model, once said to rival ChatGPT 4, failed to make an impact. The reason behind this is highly debatable.
Across today’s market saturation, the need for something unique persists. This has only motivated the giants—from Meta to Apple to Baidu.
But as tech giants continue to develop AI models almost every other week, how do we measure who’s creating an impact and who’s just following a trend?