tech

Baidu, once China’s generative AI leader, is battling to regain its position


Pictured here is the Ernie bot mobile interface, with the Baidu search engine home page in the background.

Future Publishing | Future Publishing | Getty Images

Chinese tech giant Baidu has released two new artificial intelligence models as it vies to regain its leading position in the country’s fiercely competitive AI space. 

The Baidu models launched Sunday included the company’s first reasoning-focused model, as well as its first move into an open-source licensing strategy. 

However, experts told CNBC that while the release of the models is a positive development for Baidu, they also highlight how it is playing catch up as its Ernie bot — one of China’s earliest versions of a ChatGPT-like chatbot — struggles to gain widespread adoption. 

“The new models make Baidu more competitive since the company has been lagging behind in a reasoning model release,” Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at Omdia, told CNBC.

A reasoning model is a large language model that breaks down tasks into smaller pieces and considers multiple approaches before generating a response. It is designed to process complex problems in a similar way to humans.

Chinese startup DeepSeek upended the global AI race and transformed China’s ecosystem in January when it released its R1 reasoning model, which rivaled American competitors despite costing a fraction of the price.

Baidu has said its new ERNIE X1 reasoning model “delivers performance on par with DeepSeek R1 at only half the price,” and has “stronger understanding, planning, reflection, and evolution capabilities.” CNBC has not been able to independently verify this claim.

According to Wei Sun, principal analyst of artificial intelligence at Counterpoint Research, Baidu’s future competitiveness could hinge on whether its new models deliver on the promised performance and cost advantages. 

“Baidu is clearly in catch-up mode, largely due to its slow innovation pace and underestimating rapid shifts in market dynamics,” Sun said. 

What happened? 

CFOTO | Future Publishing | Getty Images

Baidu’s advantages



Source link:www.cnbc.com

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