Baidu unveils Ernie 4.5 and Ernie X1 AI models, makes Ernie Bot free for all

Baidu has launched two new AI models, Ernie 4.5 and Ernie X1, marking its latest push to compete in the global AI race. Alongside these releases, the Chinese tech giant has also made its Ernie Bot chatbot free to use, removing the paywall for access.

The Ernie 4.5 model is a next-generation multimodal AI capable of processing text, images, audio, and videos, while Ernie X1 is Baidu’s first deep-thinking AI, optimised for reasoning and logic-based tasks.

Baidu described Ernie 4.5 as a high-performance, multimodal foundation model, designed to understand complex queries across different data formats. The company claims that Ernie 4.5 outperforms GPT-4.5 across various benchmarks all while being priced at just 1% of OpenAI’s flagship model.

According to Baidu, Ernie 4.5 features:

    •    Enhanced language capabilities for more natural conversations.
    •    Improved reasoning and memory retention, allowing for long-term context understanding.
    •    Better comprehension of contextual content like memes, satire, and nuanced text.

The model will be open-sourced on June 30, with Baidu set to release its source code and model weights for developers.

Baidu’s Ernie X1 is its first reasoning-based AI, designed to mimic human problem-solving and logical thinking. While the model has yet to be released, the company says it matches the performance of DeepSeek-R1, another Chinese-developed reasoning AI.

Key capabilities of Ernie X1 include:

    •    Chinese knowledge-based Q&A
    •    Literary creation and manuscript writing
    •    Advanced dialogue capabilities
    •    Logical reasoning and complex mathematics
    •    Multimodal tool integration, including image and document analysis, code interpretation, webpage reading, and TreeMind mapping.

Ernie X1 is built using progressive reinforcement learning (RL) and an end-to-end training approach, with a visible chain of thought (CoT) for enhanced transparency in decision-making.

In a move that could boost user adoption, Baidu has removed subscription fees for Ernie Bot, making the chatbot available for free to all users.

Additionally, the pricing for Ernie AI services undercuts global competitors:

         Ernie 4.5 Pricing:
    •    CNY 0.004 (₹0.04) per 1,000 input tokens
    •    CNY 0.016 (₹0.19) per 1,000 output tokens
         Ernie X1 Pricing (upon release):
    •    CNY 0.002 (₹0.02) per 1,000 input tokens
    •    CNY 0.008 (₹0.09) per 1,000 output tokens

While Ernie 4.5 is already available via Baidu’s AI chatbot and cloud platform Quianfan, the company has yet to confirm when Ernie X1 will be made accessible.