In a recent announcement, Baidu Inc. the Chinese tech giant claimed that its AI model, ERNIE 4.0, is on par with OpenAI’s GPT-4, as stated by Baidu’s founder, Robin Li.

The Rise of ERNIE 4.0

ERNIE 4.0, the newest version of Baidu’s AI chatbot, was unveiled at the company’s annual flagship event. During the event, Li demonstrated ERNIE Bot’s capabilities in real-time. The bot generated a car commercial within minutes, solved complex math problems, and created a martial arts novel plot from scratch.

The bot primarily operates in Mandarin Chinese but also handles queries and produces responses in English at a less advanced level. Li emphasized that ERNIE Bot has significantly improved in terms of understanding queries, generating complex responses, and memory capabilities.

A Milestone for China’s AI Development

China sees this development as a significant milestone in its race to develop AI that can rival the US. Charlie Dai, Vice President and Research Director of Technology at Forrester, noted that Baidu is the first Chinese vendor to claim performance on par with GPT-4.

Despite this achievement, investors appeared unmoved with Baidu’s shares down 1.4% following the presentation. However, this does not diminish the fact that Baidu has been a frontrunner in China in the race to capitalize on the excitement around generative AI.

The Future of ERNIE Bot

Unveiled in March and launched to invited users in August, ERNIE Bot quickly gained over 45 million users, topping Chinese app stores. ERNIE 4.0 is advancing AI, shaping our future tech interactions and showcasing Baidu’s potential.