ChatGPT by OpenAI is considered powerful, but also very expensive. Now the Chinese company Baidu has introduced a chatbot that is said to be not only faster but also much cheaper.
Which company is it about? The Chinese company Baidu operates the search engine of the same name in China. Now the company has presented two new AI models: ERNIE 4.5 and ERNIE X1. This is reported by the English-language magazine Neowin.net.
ERNIE: Faster and especially cheaper than ChatGPT
What is ERNIE? ERNIE 4.5 is a multimodal base model that can understand text, images, audio, and video. It is said to have improved capabilities in areas such as language skills, understanding, generation, logical reasoning, and memory.
With ERNIE X1, Baidu also offers a significantly more extensive model of its AI. This is a so-called “Deep Thinking” model: Deep Thinking refers to the ability to analyze and solve problems in multiple steps. It is thus supposed to be better suited for logical conclusions, complex calculations, and more.
What is special about the AI? Another positive aspect of ERNIE 4.5 is its costs, which are said to be only 1% of the costs of GPT-4.5: While ChatGPT is said to cost 700,000 US Dollars daily, the costs of ERNIE 4.5 are only 7,000 US Dollars. This aims to surpass the new AI model DeepSeek, which also costs significantly less than ChatGPT.
The prices start for input and output at 0.55 US Dollars per 1 million tokens (ERNIE) and 2.2 US Dollars per 1 million tokens (ERNIE X1).
Can you already test ERNIE? Yes, you can access ERNIE 4.5 and ERNIE X1 through the ERNIE Bot website. Baidu plans to integrate these new models into Baidu Search, the Wenxiaoyan app, and other services in the coming months. However, this may not be very relevant for German users, as these services are only available in China and there is no German equivalent.
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