China’s Baidu unveils latest version of its Ernie AI model

By Yelin Mo and Eduardo Baptista

BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese technology giant Baidu (NASDAQ:) on Tuesday unveiled the newest version of its generative artificial intelligence (AI) model, Ernie 4.0, saying its capabilities were on par with those of ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s pioneering GPT-4 model.

CEO Robin Li introduced Ernie 4.0 at an event in Beijing, focusing on what he described as the model’s memory capabilities and demonstrating it writing a martial arts novel in real-time. He also showed Ernie 4.0 creating advertising posters and videos.

Baidu, owner of China’s largest internet search engine, is at the forefront of AI models in China amid a global craze over the technology sparked by the introduction of ChatGPT last year.

The firm launched a chatbot powered by Ernie in March, dubbed ErnieBot, though investors were disappointed to be shown only pre-recorded demonstrations.

In August, Baidu was among a number of firms to receive government approval to release AI products to the public.

China now has at least 130 large language models (LLMs), representing 40% of the global total and behind only the United States’ 50%, showed data from brokerage CLSA.