Today's Edition
Beijing (dpa)
Chinese tech company Baidu said on Sunday it has launched two new artificial intelligence (AI) models, which are said to offer the same performance as the Chinese chatbot DeepSeek but at half the cost.
Ernie X1 is aimed at logical thinking, while Ernie 4.5 is a basic model, the company said, adding that both models are available free of charge to individual users through its ERNIE Bot platform.
Baidu said it plans to gradually integrate both models into its product ecosystem, including Baidu Search, the Wenxiaoyan app, and other offerings.
Earlier this year, the Chinese start-up DeepSeek caused a stir with its chatbot, claiming it could match US leader OpenAI's ChatGPT at a fraction of the cost.
This caused a brief stock market upheaval in the United States as investors questioned the efficiency of US tech companies.
Beijing-based Baidu first gained recognition in China for its search engine. The company is also considered a leader in autonomous driving and operates a robotaxi division called Apollo.
In 2023, Baidu launched the first version of its AI chatbot Ernie.
