Baidu’s ERNIE launches ‘signal a global AI race’

The launch this weekend by Baidu of a native open-source multimodal foundation model called ERNIE 4.5 and a reasoning model, ERNIE X1, could lower AI adoption barriers, intensify competition, and reshape pricing strategies across the industry, an analyst said Monday.

In order for that to occur, said Thomas Randall, research lead for AI at Info-Tech Research Group, “the success of these models will depend on performance validation, developer adoption, and enterprise trust. However, they signal a global AI race where cost-efficiency and accessibility become as important as raw capability.”

The Chinese tech giant said in a release that the introduction of the two offerings “pushes the boundaries of multimodal and reasoning models,” adding that ERNIE X1 “delivers performance on par with DeepSeek R1 at only half the price.”