CHINESE technology giant Baidu Inc. yesterday unveiled the newest version of its generative artificial intelligence (AI) model that it said rivals ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s pioneering GPT-4, as part of its efforts to lead the race for AI development in the world’s second-largest economy.

Baidu, the owner of China’s largest internet search engine, introduced the latest version of its model known as Ernie, saying that it reflects improvements in understanding, generation, logic and memory.

CEO Robin Li introduced Ernie 4.0 at an event in Beijing, focusing on what he described as the model’s memory capabilities and demonstrating it writing a martial arts novel in real time. He also showed Ernie 4.0 creating advertising posters and videos.

Ernie 4.0’s capabilities are “not inferior to GPT-4,” said Li, referring to the latest AI-powered language model developed by U.S.-based OpenAI.

Analysts were unimpressed. Ernie 4.0’s launch lacked major highlights versus the previous version, said Lu Yanxia, an analyst at industry consultancy IDC.

“We should see significant improvements once Ernie 4.0 is used hands-on, but concrete upgrades aren’t immediately clear,” Lu said.

The marquee Ernie chatbot now surpassed 45 million users, a milestone that still lags ChatGPT’s estimated 180 million, though the U.S. bot launched months earlier.

Baidu is pinning its hopes on AI to help it surpass rivals from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to Tencent Holdings Ltd. that control the rest of the internet.

Baidu is at the forefront of AI models in China amid a global craze over the technology sparked by the introduction of ChatGPT last year.

The firm launched a chatbot powered by Ernie in March, dubbed ErnieBot, though investors were disappointed to be shown only pre-recorded demonstrations.

In August, Baidu was among a number of firms to receive government approval to release AI products to the public.

China now has at least 130 large language models (LLMs), representing 40% of the global total and behind only the United States’ 50%, showed data from brokerage CLSA.

Baidu now hopes Ernie will become a core business alongside online marketing, helping regain users lost to all-purpose apps run by TikTok-owner ByteDance Ltd. and Tencent.

Baidu has infused Ernie into flagship products like search, maps, file-sharing, work collaboration and data analytics. (SD-Agencies)