Baidu Unveils ERNIE 4.5 Turbo and ERNIE X1 Turbo Alongside New AI Tools to Boost Developer Innovation
Baidu has launched ERNIE 4.5 Turbo and ERNIE X1 Turbo, featuring enhanced multimodal capabilities, strong reasoning, and cost efficiency. The company also introduced new AI applications and initiatives to empower developers and drive AI innovation.
Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU and HKEX: 9888) unveiled its latest AI innovations at the Baidu Create 2025 developer conference, introducing two new models—ERNIE 4.5 Turbo and ERNIE X1 Turbo—alongside a suite of AI applications and developer-focused initiatives.
Key Highlights:
1. ERNIE 4.5 Turbo and ERNIE X1 Turbo: Faster, Cheaper, and More Capable
- ERNIE 4.5 Turbo: Offers faster responses, reduced hallucination, and improved logical reasoning and coding abilities. Priced at RMB 0.8 per million tokens for input and RMB 3.2 for output, it is 80% cheaper than ERNIE 4.5.
- ERNIE X1 Turbo: An upgraded deep-thinking reasoning model with enhanced multimodal and tool invocation capabilities. Priced at half the cost of ERNIE X1, it outperforms competitors like DeepSeek R1.
- Both models are now available for free on ERNIE Bot.
2. AI Applications: Digital Humans and Multi-Agent Collaboration
- Highly Convincing Digital Humans: Baidu showcased ultra-realistic AI digital humans with professional content-generation and flexible interaction capabilities. The Huiboxing platform allows users to create digital humans with just a 2-minute video.
- Xinxiang: A multi-agent collaboration app capable of handling 200 task types, from travel planning to office work. Baidu plans to expand this to over 100,000 task types.
- Cangzhou OS: A content operating system enabling AI Note, a multimodal note-taking tool that generates notes, mind maps, and quizzes from educational videos.
3. Developer Empowerment: AI Open Initiative and MCP Integration
- AI Open Initiative: Provides developers with traffic and monetization opportunities through sai.baidu.com.
- Model Context Protocol (MCP): A "universal socket" for AI, enabling seamless integration of external services with Baidu's ecosystem, including Baidu Search and Baidu Drive.
- ERNIE Cup Innovation Challenge: Offers up to RMB 70 million in investment for outstanding AI projects.
4. Future Commitments
- Baidu aims to cultivate 10 million additional AI talents over the next five years.
- The company emphasized the shift from text-based to multimodal models, predicting dominance for applications in the AI landscape.
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About the Author
Michael Rodriguez
AI Technology Journalist
Veteran technology journalist with 12 years of focus on AI industry reporting. Former AI section editor at TechCrunch, now freelance writer contributing in-depth AI industry analysis to renowned media outlets like Wired and The Verge. Has keen insights into AI startups and emerging technology trends.
