Baidu has launched ERNIE 4. 5 and ERNIE X1, making ERNIE Bot available for free to the public ahead of its original April 1 deadline. Users can access both advanced models at no cost through the official ERNIE Bot website. ERNIE X1 is a deep-thinking reasoning model that competes with DeepSeek R1 while being more affordable, and ERNIE 4. 5 is the latest native multimodal foundation model from Baidu, priced significantly lower than competitors like GPT-4. 5. These models boast robust multimodal capabilities that allow them to understand and process various types of content, including text, images, audio, and video, and come with improved reasoning abilities.

ERNIE 4. 5 utilizes advanced technologies for better performance in language understanding and generation, while ERNIE X1 enhances planning and logical reasoning, supporting various tools for tasks like image generation and document analysis. Baidu plans to seamlessly integrate these models into its product ecosystem, including Baidu Search and the Wenxiaoyan app. For enterprise users, ERNIE 4. 5’s API is available on Baidu AI Cloud's Qianfan platform, with ERNIE X1 to follow soon. Overall, the launch signifies Baidu's commitment to advancing AI technologies and enhancing user experience, as it continues to invest in data centers and cloud infrastructure for future developments.