Baidu received government approval in August to release AI products to the public, solidifying its position as a trailblazer in the Chinese AI landscape.
Chinese tech behemoth Baidu took center stage on Tuesday as it revealed its cutting-edge generative artificial intelligence (AI) model, Ernie 4.0, asserting that its capabilities are on par with the groundbreaking GPT-4 model from OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT.
CEO Robin Li introduced Ernie 4.0 at a high-profile event held in Beijing, highlighting the model’s exceptional memory capabilities.
In a live demonstration, Ernie 4.0 showcased its prowess by spontaneously generating a martial arts novel. Additionally, Li presented the model’s proficiency in crafting advertising posters and producing videos.
Baidu, the proprietor of China’s largest internet search engine, stands at the forefront of AI model development in China, riding the wave of global fascination with this transformative technology ignited by the introduction of ChatGPT last year.
The company’s earlier launch of ErnieBot, a chatbot powered by Ernie, garnered interest, although some investors expressed disappointment over the limited scope of the pre-recorded demonstrations.
Baidu received government approval in August to release AI products to the public, solidifying its position as a trailblazer in the Chinese AI landscape. Recent data from brokerage CLSA reveals that China now boasts a total of over 130 large language models (LLMs), accounting for 40% of the global tally and trailing only the United States, which has 50%.
Baidu’s unveiling of Ernie 4.0 signals a major leap forward in AI capabilities and positions the company as a formidable competitor in the dynamic and highly competitive AI arena. With Ernie 4.0’s impressive memory capabilities and demonstrated proficiency in real-time creative tasks, Baidu is poised to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of AI innovation.
The fourth in OpenAI’s line of GPT foundation models, Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4 is a multimodal big language model. It was first made available to the public on March 14, 2023, and is now accessible to everyone through OpenAI’s API and the commercial chatbot service ChatGPT Plus.