Baidu Unveils ERNIE 4.5 and ERNIE X1, Providing Free Access to Advanced AI Models
BEIJING, March 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU and HKEX: 9888), a leading AI company, announced the launch of its latest foundation models: ERNIE 4.5, a native multimodal model, and ERNIE X1, a deep-thinking reasoning model. Both models are now accessible to individual users at no cost through the ERNIE Bot website (https://yiyan.baidu.com/), a move that puts Baidu ahead of schedule in its plan to offer ERNIE Bot freely to the public by April 1.
This launch signifies a substantial advancement in multimodal and reasoning AI, offering cutting-edge features at a more accessible price point. It demonstrates Baidu’s commitment to continued investment in developing more sophisticated and potent next-generation foundation models.
Baidu also plans to incorporate ERNIE 4.5 and X1 into its product ecosystem, which includes Baidu Search and the Wenxiaoyan app. This integration aims to provide a more versatile and enhanced experience to a wider user base.
ERNIE 4.5: A New Generation in Multimodal AI
ERNIE 4.5 is Baidu’s latest native multimodal foundation model, engineered in-house. It’s designed with collaborative optimization through joint modeling of multiple modalities, including text, images, audio, and video, resulting in exceptional comprehension abilities. The model has enhanced language skills, leading to increased accuracy in understanding, generation, reasoning, and memory, and has also improved hallucination prevention and coding abilities.
According to the company, ERNIE 4.5 surpasses GPT-4.5 in several benchmark assessments, at a fraction of the cost. Key technologies powering ERNIE 4.5 include “FlashMask” Dynamic Attention Masking, Heterogeneous Multimodal Mixture-of-Experts, Spatiotemporal Representation Compression, Knowledge-Centric Training Data Construction, and Self-feedback Enhanced Post-Training.
ERNIE X1: Deep-Thinking Reasoning Capabilities
ERNIE X1, Baidu’s deep-thinking reasoning model, has advanced capabilities in understanding, planning, reflection, and evolution. As Baidu’s first multimodal, deep-thinking reasoning model capable of tool use, X1 excels in Chinese knowledge Q&A, literary creation, manuscript writing, dialogue, logical reasoning, and complex calculations.
For tool use specifically, X1 supports a variety of tools, including advanced search functions, Q&A based on documents, image understanding, AI image generation, code interpretation, webpage reading, TreeMind mapping, Baidu academic search, business information search, and franchise information search. The enhancement of ERNIE X1’s capabilities has been driven by critical technologies such as Progressive Reinforcement Learning Method, End-to-End Training Approach Integrating Chains of Thought and Action, and a Unified Multi-Faceted Reward System.
Availability and Pricing
For enterprise users and developers, the ERNIE 4.5 API is available through Baidu AI Cloud’s Qianfan MaaS platform, with input prices starting as low as RMB 0.004 per thousand tokens and output prices at RMB 0.016 per thousand tokens. ERNIE X1 will soon be available on the Qianfan Platform, with input prices as low as RMB 0.002 per thousand tokens and output prices as low as RMB 0.008 per thousand tokens.
Baidu is set to continue its investment in AI, data centers, and cloud infrastructure with the launch of ERNIE 4.5 and ERNIE X1. The goal is to advance its AI capabilities and develop more advanced next-generation models in 2025.
About Baidu
Founded in 2000, Baidu’s mission is to make the complicated world simpler through technology. Baidu is a leading AI company with a strong internet foundation, trading on the NASDAQ under “BIDU” and HKEX under “9888.” One Baidu ADS represents eight Class A ordinary shares.
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