This is Hamamoto from TIMEWELL.
Baidu — often called "China's Google" — announced two new artificial intelligence models on March 16: ERNIE 4.5 and ERNIE X1. Both models claim performance comparable to leading Western AI systems, at pricing that is dramatically lower. ERNIE 4.5 benchmarks favorably against OpenAI's GPT-4.5 on several tasks while costing roughly 1% of GPT-4.5's API rate. If those claims hold up, the announcement represents a significant new development in the global AI competition.
What Is Baidu?
Baidu was founded in January 2000 by Robin Li (Li Yanhong) and has become one of China's most important internet companies. In China, Google, Facebook, and most major Western internet services are unavailable due to government regulation, which created the conditions for Baidu to become the country's dominant search engine.
Baidu is more than a search engine. From a single search bar, Chinese users can access web results, news, images, video, music, document databases, encyclopedias, document sharing, and a Q&A service similar to Yahoo Answers. The rough comparison: the layout of Google combined with the breadth of Yahoo's services, localized for Chinese internet users.
Beyond search, Baidu operates businesses in web marketing, autonomous vehicles, and AI research — making it one of China's most active technology conglomerates.
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ERNIE 4.5 — Next-Generation Multimodal Foundation Model
ERNIE 4.5 is Baidu's new native multimodal foundation model, capable of processing and integrating text, images, audio, and video.
According to Baidu, ERNIE 4.5 outperforms OpenAI's GPT-4.5 on multiple benchmarks — while costing approximately 1% of GPT-4.5's API price.
Pricing comparison:
| Model | Input (per 1,000 tokens) | Output (per 1,000 tokens) |
|---|---|---|
| ERNIE 4.5 | ¥0.08 (approx.) | ¥0.32 (approx.) |
| GPT-4.5 | ¥11.25 (approx.) | ¥22.50 (approx.) |
(ERNIE 4.5 pricing based on 0.004 RMB/1,000 tokens input, 0.016 RMB/1,000 tokens output, at 20 RMB/USD. GPT-4.5 pricing at $0.075/$0.15 per 1,000 tokens, at 150 JPY/USD.)
ERNIE 4.5 also demonstrates strong cultural context understanding — it can interpret internet memes, political cartoons, and culturally specific content that requires background knowledge beyond pure language processing. This is a meaningful benchmark for AI systems that need to operate in real-world content environments.
ERNIE 4.5 is currently accessible to enterprise users and developers via API through Baidu AI Cloud's MaaS platform, Qianfan.
ERNIE X1 — Deep Thinking Reasoning Model
ERNIE X1 is Baidu's new deep-thinking reasoning model, focused on understanding, planning, reflection, and iterative problem-solving.
Baidu positions ERNIE X1 as matching the performance of DeepSeek R1 — the Chinese reasoning model that attracted significant attention internationally earlier in 2025. Strong performance areas include knowledge Q&A, creative writing, and complex calculation.
What distinguishes ERNIE X1 is that it is Baidu's first multimodal deep-thinking reasoning model capable of using tools autonomously. This marks a shift from AI as information processor to AI as active problem-solver — executing searches, analyzing documents, and interpreting images as part of a multi-step reasoning process.
ERNIE X1 pricing:
| Per 1,000 tokens | |
|---|---|
| Input | ¥0.04 (approx.) |
| Output | ¥0.16 (approx.) |
(Based on 0.002 RMB/1,000 tokens input, 0.008 RMB/1,000 tokens output.)
ERNIE X1 will be available on Baidu's ERNIE Bot chat platform shortly after the announcement.
ERNIE Bot Goes Free
The launch of ERNIE 4.5 and ERNIE X1 accelerated Baidu's plan to make ERNIE Bot freely available to individual users. Baidu announced that from April 1, ERNIE Bot will be fully free for personal use — ahead of the originally planned schedule.
What This Means
Baidu's announcement creates pressure on AI pricing across the industry. The combination of credible benchmark performance and radically lower API costs — if the claims hold under independent testing — could reshape how enterprises and developers choose AI infrastructure.
That said, several questions remain. The sustainability of these price levels at scale is unclear. Data privacy and potential content restrictions (given Baidu's operating environment in China) are legitimate concerns for international enterprise users. And independent benchmark verification of Baidu's claims has not yet been published at the time of this writing.
The broader pattern, however, is significant: AI competition from Chinese developers has entered a new phase. DeepSeek's emergence, followed by Baidu's price and performance claims, signals that the assumption of Western AI dominance is facing a real challenge.
References:
- https://home.baidu.com/home/index
- https://www.baidu.jp/
- https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/baidu-unveils-ernie-4-5-and-reasoning-model-ernie-x1--makes-ernie-bot-free-ahead-of-schedule-302402490.html
