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Baidu Inc (NASDAQ:BIDU) (9888.HK), a leading Chinese technology firm, announced plans to unveil its latest artificial intelligence model, Ernie 5, in the second half of 2025. This advanced iteration is expected to possess multimodal capabilities, which will allow it to process and interchange various formats such as text, video, images, and audio.
The development of Ernie 5 is a strategic move in response to the growing competition within China’s AI industry, particularly from the startup DeepSeek. DeepSeek has recently made headlines for its reasoning model that reportedly matches the performance of OpenAI’s GPT at a reduced cost.
Despite being an early adopter in the AI space following the debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, Baidu has faced challenges in achieving widespread adoption of its Ernie large language model.
The company claims that its current version, Ernie 4, is on par with OpenAI’s GPT-4 in terms of capabilities. However, Baidu’s AI products have not kept pace with domestic rivals, such as ByteDance’s Doubao chatbot and the emerging DeepSeek, in attracting users.
The competitive landscape was a topic of discussion at a conference in Dubai on Tuesday, where Baidu CEO Robin Li addressed the audience. Li highlighted the unexpected rise of DeepSeek as an example of the unpredictable nature of innovation within the technology sector.
"You just don’t know when and where innovations come from," he remarked. Li also emphasized the continued necessity for investment in data centers and cloud infrastructure, even as companies like DeepSeek challenge the cost-efficiency of developing large-scale AI models.
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