Introduction to ERNIE 4.5 and ERNIE X1

Baidu has recently introduced its latest foundation AI models, ERNIE 4.5 and ERNIE X1, which are being offered free of charge to individual users through the ERNIE Bot platform. The company’s objective is to "push the boundaries of multimodal and reasoning models" by providing advanced capabilities at a more accessible price point. Baidu plans to integrate these models into its broader product ecosystem, including Baidu Search and the Wenxiaoyan app, to enhance user experiences.

ERNIE 4.5 Features and Capabilities

ERNIE 4.5 is Baidu’s "new generation native multimodal foundation model," featuring collaborative optimisation across multiple modalities, resulting in improved multimodal comprehension. It enhances language understanding, generation, reasoning, and memory, while also improving hallucination prevention, logical reasoning, and coding abilities. A key feature of ERNIE 4.5 is its ability to integrate and understand various content types, including text, images, audio, and video. It can also grasp complex content such as internet memes and satirical cartoons, showcasing strong contextual awareness.

Comparison with GPT-4.5

Baidu claims that ERNIE 4.5 outperforms GPT-4.5 in several benchmarks while being significantly more affordable, priced at "just 1% of GPT-4.5." The model’s advancements are attributed to technologies like FlashMask dynamic attention masking, heterogeneous multimodal mixture-of-experts, spatiotemporal representation compression, knowledge-centric training data construction, and self-feedback enhanced post-training.

ERNIE X1: Deep-Thinking Reasoning Model

ERNIE X1, Baidu’s new deep-thinking reasoning model, focuses on enhanced understanding, planning, reflection, and evolution. As Baidu’s "first multimodal deep-thinking reasoning model capable of tool use," X1 excels in areas like Chinese knowledge Q&A, literary creation, and complex calculations. The model’s tool use includes features like advanced search, document Q&A, image understanding, AI image generation, and webpage reading. ERNIE X1’s capabilities are supported by technologies such as the progressive reinforcement learning method, end-to-end training approach integrating chains of thought and action, and a unified multi-faceted reward system.

Availability and Pricing

For enterprise users and developers, ERNIE 4.5 is accessible through APIs on Baidu AI Cloud’s Qianfan platform, with competitive pricing structures. ERNIE X1 will soon be available on the same platform. Baidu anticipates that "2025 is set to be an important year for the development and iteration of large language models and technologies" and plans to continue investing in AI, data centres, and cloud infrastructure to advance its AI capabilities and develop next-generation models.

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