At Baidu’s headquarters in Beijing, visitors can be seen engaging with an AI robot positioned near the company logo. This image from April 2021, captured by Florence Lo for Reuters, highlights the tech giant’s focus on AI advancements.
In an exciting development out of Beijing, Baidu is gearing up to launch the newest iteration of its AI model later this year. According to an insider, this next-gen version, dubbed Ernie 5.0, promises significant improvements in its “multimodal capabilities.” Although specifics are still under wraps, this enhancement will allow AI to seamlessly handle and transform data across various formats—texts, videos, images, and audio.
Foundation models, like Baidu’s, are designed to master language comprehension and execute a broad spectrum of tasks ranging from text and image creation to engaging in natural conversations.
This update is pivotal as Chinese enterprises push to rival U.S.-based AI powerhouses like OpenAI. Earlier this year, DeepSeek, a startup from Hangzhou, caused ripples across global tech markets with their open-source AI capable of sophisticated reasoning. Their model, also noted for being more economical than OpenAI’s ChatGPT, spurred a stock sell-off.
At a recent Dubai summit, Baidu CEO Robin Li shared optimism about the rapidly dropping costs of foundation models, which he argued, essentially boost productivity. During a lively discussion with Omar Sultan Al Olama, the UAE’s minister of state for AI, Li equated cost reductions with increased innovation.
Back in March 2023, Baidu broke new ground with Ernie, its ChatGPT-like chatbot. However, the product soon faced stiff competition from other Chinese tech firms, including newcomers and giants like Alibaba and ByteDance. Alibaba, for instance, has seen its stock soar 33% this year, whereas Baidu’s shares have risen modestly by 6%. Meanwhile, Tencent also experienced a 4% gain, with ByteDance remaining privately held and not listed on the stock exchange.
Baidu’s Ernie model is already central to incorporating generative AI across its offerings, from cloud solutions to content creation. The company’s Wenku platform has also witnessed substantial growth, boasting 40 million paying users by the end of 2024—a 60% increase from the previous year. New features, such as AI-generated presentations from company financials, have been made available since January.
The current Ernie model is version 4, which debuted in October 2023, with a speedier “turbo” release hitting the market in August 2024. Although Baidu hasn’t officially announced the rollout of its next version, the tech community is eagerly awaiting its arrival.
Elsewhere, OpenAI unveiled GPT-4o in May 2024, though CEO Sam Altman has not specified when the following version, GPT-5, might be available, according to a recent Reddit Q&A session.
As of now, Baidu has chosen not to comment further on these developments.
