Baidu has officially introduced ERNIE X1 Turbo and ERNIE 4.5 Turbo, two powerful new AI models that push the boundaries of performance while slashing operational costs.
Building on the existing ERNIE X1 and 4.5 models, the new Turbo versions showcase major upgrades in multimodal processing, deep reasoning, and a bold pricing strategy aimed at expanding Baidu’s market influence.
ERNIE X1 Turbo: Advanced Reasoning at a Disruptive Price
Designed for complex reasoning tasks, ERNIE X1 Turbo offers impressive benchmark performance, outperforming competitors like DeepSeek R1, V3, and OpenAI o1 in several key areas.
Key features include:
- Enhanced “chain of thought” reasoning for structured problem-solving
- Multimodal capabilities, allowing processing of images, text, and other data types
- Tool use optimization, ideal for content generation, coding, and instruction following
Even more impressive is the model’s aggressive pricing:
- Input tokens: $0.14 per million
- Output tokens: $0.55 per million
At just 25% of DeepSeek R1’s cost, ERNIE X1 Turbo positions itself as a compelling option for developers needing high-end capabilities without premium pricing.
ERNIE 4.5 Turbo: High-Speed Multimodal Power
Alongside X1 Turbo, Baidu launched ERNIE 4.5 Turbo, targeting users who demand fast, versatile AI performance at a fraction of the traditional cost.
Highlights include:
- Significantly faster response times than ERNIE 4.5
- 80% cost reduction compared to the non-Turbo version
- Input tokens: $0.11 per million
- Output tokens: $0.44 per million
Performance tests show ERNIE 4.5 Turbo outperforming OpenAI’s celebrated GPT-4o, scoring 77.68 compared to GPT-4o’s 72.76 in multimodal capability evaluations.
This leap makes ERNIE 4.5 Turbo a strong choice for projects needing integrated handling of images, text, and complex datasets.
Baidu’s Bold Play in the AI Market
With the launch of these models, Baidu is clearly signaling a broader shift in the AI landscape: bringing elite AI capabilities to the masses.
By combining top-tier reasoning and multimodal features with aggressive affordability, Baidu is putting pressure on major players like OpenAI, Anthropic, and DeepSeek to rethink their pricing — a move that could reshape access to advanced AI tools globally.
Expect further disruption as more developers and businesses gravitate toward these competitively priced, high-performing options.
