You might not realise how dramatically Baidu is shaking up the AI market with its new ERNIE models. By pricing ERNIE 4.5 and X1 at just 1% of what competitors charge for similar capabilities, they're making advanced AI accessible to organisations that previously couldn't afford it. This pricing strategy isn't just about undercutting rivals—it could fundamentally change who gets to use cutting-edge AI technology and how they'll implement it.
According to Robin Li, Baidu's founder and CEO: "We believe that AI should be accessible to everyone, and our pricing strategy reflects this commitment to democratising advanced technology across industries and applications."
The aggressive pricing approach represents a significant shift in the market landscape. Businesses that once viewed premium AI models as prohibitively expensive may now be able to integrate sophisticated capabilities into their operations, potentially accelerating innovation in various sectors throughout the United Kingdom and globally.
According to Baidu's official announcement: "ERNIE 4.5 and X1 models deliver performance comparable to leading competitors while dramatically reducing the cost barrier to entry, allowing more organisations to benefit from advanced AI capabilities."
Baidu Undercuts Rival AI Models
While tech giants continue to battle for AI supremacy with increasingly expensive models, Baidu has taken a different approach by launching two powerful AI systems at surprisingly affordable prices. ERNIE 4.5 and ERNIE X1 are available free of charge through ERNIE Bot's official website, making cutting-edge AI accessible to anyone interested in trying these technologies.
ERNIE 4.5 serves as an everyday assistant, handling multiple data types including text, images, audio, and video. What's impressive is that it outperformed GPT-4o in multimodal benchmarks whilst costing just 1% of GPT-4.5's price. Users will pay as little as RMB 0.004 per thousand tokens for input and RMB 0.016 for output, making it incredibly cost-effective for regular use. The model achieved an impressive average multimodal score of 77.77, surpassing GPT-4o's 73.92 across various benchmarks.
ERNIE 4.5 delivers multimodal excellence at a fraction of competitors' prices, making cutting-edge AI accessible for everyone's daily needs.
For specialised reasoning capabilities, ERNIE X1 offers advanced functions in mathematics, complex coding, and tool use at half the cost of competitor DeepSeek R1. The model excels at Chinese knowledge Q&A, literary creation, and logical reasoning tasks, making it perfect for more demanding applications.
According to Robin Li, Baidu's founder and CEO: "This isn't merely about making AI more accessible, but also about democratising advanced technology to drive innovation across sectors."
Both models leverage sophisticated technologies like FlashMask dynamic attention masking and Progressive Reinforcement Learning to deliver high-quality results. ERNIE X1 will soon be available on Baidu AI Cloud's Qianfan Platform with competitive pricing.
Whilst Baidu claims performance parity with rivals, there might be some limitations for use outside China due to language and usability issues. Nevertheless, these affordable yet powerful offerings could reshape expectations of what AI should cost.
Baidu's aggressive pricing strategy signals a clear intent to disrupt the market by prioritising accessibility over premium pricing – potentially forcing competitors to reconsider their own pricing models.
According to Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Information Consumption Alliance: "Baidu's strategy represents a significant shift in how AI technologies are being commercialised, potentially accelerating widespread adoption across various industries in China and beyond."
