Baidu and Alibaba Accelerate AI Innovations

Baidu unveils Ernie 5.0 AI model; Alibaba updates Tongyi app.
Baidu has unveiled a new version of its flagship AI model, Ernie 5.0, at the company’s largest annual tech exhibition in Beijing, reports Bloomberg.
Ernie 5.0 is a “native omnimodal” neural network capable of understanding user commands across various media formats.

“Intelligence itself is the best application, and the speed of technological iteration is the only defensive moat. Baidu will continue to invest and develop more advanced models to raise the bar even higher,” said billionaire and company founder Robin Li.

In tests presented on stage for language, audio, and visual data comprehension, Ernie 5.0 kept pace with segment leaders like DeepSeek, Gemini, and GPT-5.
During his speech, Li addressed concerns about a growing bubble in the artificial intelligence market. He pointed to an “unhealthy, unsustainable” structure where chip manufacturers, rather than application developers, reap the most benefits from the technology.

“Regardless of how much money chip manufacturers make, models based on them should deliver ten times more value, and applications a hundred times,” he emphasized.

Other Releases

The announcement of Ernie 5.0 concluded a three-hour presentation of Baidu’s new products. Alongside the model, the company introduced two AI chips — M100 and M300. They will be available for sale in 2026 and 2027. Technical specifications remain undisclosed.
An agency tool for industrial use, such as traffic light management, was also launched.
Some of its existing solutions are being promoted to overseas markets, including a digital avatar for streamers and a no-code development tool.
Previously, Baidu held an advantage in the AI race in China and was considered a major competitor to OpenAI in the country for some time. However, the company soon ceded leadership to ByteDance and Alibaba.

Alibaba Chasing OpenAI

Alibaba is preparing to update its AI mobile app Tongyi in the coming months to resemble ChatGPT.
Initially, the plan is to rename it to Qwen, after the flagship AI model. AI-based shopping features will then be introduced across various platforms, including the main Taobao marketplace.
The ultimate goal is to make the app a fully functional AI agent and enter the global market by launching an overseas version.
Besides Tongyi, Alibaba also has Qwen Chat on iOS and Android, though its capabilities are noticeably more modest. The company aims to simplify the interface and enhance user convenience, developing consumer services under the Qwen brand.
For now, the app will remain free, but developers may introduce charges for access to services in the future.

China Catching Up

Chinese startups significantly lag behind their American counterparts in terms of revenue. As of August, only four AI applications from private Chinese companies made it into the top 100 by annual recurring revenue. Glority, Plaud, ByteDance, and Zuoyebang collectively earned $447 million — just 1.23% of the total $36.4 billion.
However, China leads the world in the number of patents in the field of LLM. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, in 2024, China filed 1.8 million applications — nearly half of the global total and more than three times that of the United States.
Japan, South Korea, and Germany occupy the next positions.
China has issued over 1 million patents, whereas the US has granted 319,815.