BIDU(BIDU) Prnewswire·2025-04-25 17:03Core Insights - Baidu introduced new AI models ERNIE 4.5 Turbo and ERNIE X1 Turbo at its annual developer conference, focusing on empowering developers and enhancing application capabilities [1][2][3] - The company emphasizes the importance of practical applications over advanced models and chips, predicting a shift towards multimodal models in the AI market [2][7] Model Innovations - ERNIE 4.5 Turbo and ERNIE X1 Turbo feature enhanced multimodal capabilities, strong reasoning, and low costs, available for free on ERNIE Bot [3][10] - ERNIE X1 Turbo is priced at RMB 1 per million tokens for input and RMB 4 for output, making it 25% of the price of DeepSeek R1 [5] - ERNIE 4.5 Turbo offers input at RMB 0.8 per million tokens and output at RMB 3.2, significantly lower than competitors [6] Application Development - Baidu launched a multi-agent collaboration app Xinxiang, capable of handling 200 task types, with plans to expand to over 100,000 [14] - The company introduced highly convincing AI digital humans and a digital human livestream platform, enhancing user interaction and content generation [9][10] Ecosystem and Initiatives - Baidu announced the AI Open Initiative to support developers with traffic, monetization opportunities, and access to AI services [18] - The Model Context Protocol (MCP) was introduced to facilitate seamless connections between external services and large models [19] - Baidu plans to invest up to RMB 70 million in the third ERNIE Cup Innovation Challenge and aims to cultivate an additional 10 million AI talents over the next five years [20] Market Positioning - The company positions itself as a leader in AI, with a strong internet foundation, and aims to simplify technology for users [22] - Baidu's annual tech event serves as a platform for technology launches and knowledge exchange, focusing on the theme "Models Lead, APPs Rule" [21]