China’s largest search engine, Baidu Inc (9888. HK), said its latest ChatGPT-style service outperformed Microsoft’s OpenAI chatbot.
Baidu’s latest AI model, Ernie 3.5, outperformed “ChatGPT in comprehensive ability scores” and “GPT-4 in several Chinese capabilities” on Tuesday.
China Science Daily, a state media, tested AI model performance using AGIEval and C-Eval datasets.
OpenAI didn’t respond to an off-hours email.
The Baidu launch follows ChatGPT’s migration to China, which sparked a wave of Chinese businesses launching rival AI technology.
The first big Chinese tech company to compete with ChatGPT was Baidu, which introduced Ernie Bot in March. For three months, Baidu’s Ernie Bot, based on Ernie 3.0, has been in invite-only testing.
Tencent Holdings (0700. HK) and Alibaba Group (9988. HK) displayed their AI models.
Baidu’s new model allows faster and cheaper iterations due to improved training and inference efficiency. Baidu also said that the new model would welcome external “plugins.”
Plugins will help Baidu’s AI summarize large sentences and answer more accurately. ChatGPT added plugins in March.