China's Baidu is baking a new generative AI model for later this year, says report

Chinese web services giant Baidu is working on a new AI model, which will be released later this year, CNBC reports. The next generation of its large language model (LLM), Ernie 5.0, is expected to arrive sometime in the year's second half.

Baidu was an early mover in the generative space following OpenAI's breakout. The company released its Ernie AI model and a ChatGPT-like chatbot known as Ernie bot back in March 2023. It has since pushed several updates to its AI tech, including last year's Ernie 4.0 Turbo.

There were reports that Apple might join hands with Baidu to bring its AI features to the iPhone in China. Similar to how the Cupertino giant partnered with OpenAI to have access to advanced AI features and models. However, Apple seems to have sided with Alibaba in this case.

Baidu's Ernie Bot has faced competition on its home ground from Chinese tech giants such as ByteDance and Alibaba, who entered the AI race and launched their chatbots. Moreover, DeepSeek recently took the tech world by storm and tried to dethrone ChatGPT. However, the Chinese-origin AI model is facing scrutiny in multiple regions globally.

A familiar source told the publication that Ernie 5.0 is expected to bring "big enhancements in multimodal capabilities." It will also be a "foundational model" just like its predecessors, capable of doing a wide range of tasks, including natural language communication, text and image generation.

Baidu CEO Robin Li said during the World Governments Summit in Dubai:

We are living in an exciting time ... The inference cost [of foundation models] basically can be reduced by more than 90% over 12 months.

If you can reduce the cost by a certain percentage, then that means your productivity increases by that kind of percentage. I think that’s pretty much the nature of innovation.

There is no word on what exact features and upgrades will be included in Ernie 5.0. Its maker, Baidu, has not officially announced the next-generation AI model.

Previous models from the Chinese tech giant, including Ernie 4.0 and 4.0 Turbo, have improved generation, reasoning, understanding, and memory performance. They were designed to integrate with the company's other apps and services.

It was reported last year that Ernie Bot had reached over 300 million users, and Baidu's PaddlePaddle AI ecosystem had over 14.65 million developers and served 370,000 institutions and organizations.