Chinese AI Model Reportedly Equals OpenAI’s GPT-4 in Power

China’s Baidu has released the latest version of Ernie AI LLM, called Ernie 4.0. According to the bold claim of the company, the new version corresponds to the GPT-4 Large Language model of OpenAI (creator of ChatGPT).

As reported by Reuters, Baidu CEO Robin Li unveiled the new AI model at the company’s event in Beijing, China. During the event, the head of Baidu revealed countless features of this AI model, including its ability to write real-time content, such as a martial arts book, and its ability to create visual media, such as posters and videos.

For those who may not be familiar, Baidu is the largest search engine in China, but does not compete with Google search as it is blocked in mainland China. Baidu’s efforts with the Ernie AI model and chatbot Ernie Bot are seen as China’s attempt to level the AI playing field with American tech giants Google and OpenAI, both of which have advanced large language models, namely PaLM 2 (powering Google Bard). ) and GPT-4 (authorizes ChatGPT).

According to Reuters, China now has “at least 130 major language models (LLMs), representing 40 percent of the world total.” The country is now second only to the United States, which accounts for 50 percent of the global total, according to CLSA brokerage data.

In light of this, it is clear that the global “AI race” is heating up, not only in the US with companies such as Meta and Amazon entering the race, the generative AI sector is developing rapidly.

In July, Meta released an updated version of its LLaMa LLM model, known as Llama 2. Meta has released this model as open source, making it freely available for both commercial and research purposes. In addition, Amazon has also entered the AI arena with the intention of bringing a new generative AI model to its range of Echo smart home devices, as well as unveiling a new generation of Echo devices that understand conversational phrases and react with AI.