Baidu Launches Ernie X1, Challenging US AI Dominance

Baidu has launched its new AI models, Ernie X1 and Ernie 4.5, positioning itself as a major competitor in the global AI landscape. The Ernie X1 is touted for its reasoning capabilities, matching the performance of DeepSeek's R1 at half the price, while Ernie 4.5 claims to outperform OpenAI's GPT-4.5 in multiple benchmarks at just 1% of its cost. These releases come as Baidu integrates these models into its ecosystem, including its dominant search engine, Baidu Search. Baidu's pricing strategy highlights significant cost advantages over competitors, with input and output token prices significantly lower than those of OpenAI and DeepSeek. User feedback has been positive, indicating strong initial performance for the new models. This development reflects China's aggressive push in the AI sector, solidifying Baidu's role as a leading innovator in artificial intelligence.