Baidu AI Cloud is trying its best to make its mark in the AI industry with a significant upgrade to its Qianfan platform. This update is designed to empower businesses of all sizes to leverage the power of advanced AI technology, making it easier and more affordable than ever before.

Five new ERNIE Models have been launched, with smaller footprints than LLMs

The centerpiece of the upgrade is the introduction of five new ERNIE models. Unlike traditional large language models (LLMs) that require massive amounts of computing power, these innovative models are designed with smaller footprints. This translates to a significant cost advantage for businesses, allowing them to incorporate AI into their operations without hefty infrastructure investments. Furthermore, the new ERNIE models boast impressive versatility, performing well across a wide range of applications, ensuring businesses can find the perfect fit for their specific needs.

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Image Credits: Reuters

The Qianfan ModelBuilder platform now offers a diverse lineup of ERNIE models:

ERNIE Speed: A master of context comprehension, ERNIE Speed can churn out highly accurate and coherent content. This model tackles complex scenarios with ease, analyzing context windows of up to 128,000 tokens. In specific domains, ERNIE Speed can even rival the performance of top-of-the-line ERNIE models.
ERNIE Lite: This upgraded version of ERNIE Bot Turbo brings a 20% boost in performance for tasks like sentiment analysis, multi-tasking learning, and natural reasoning. The real game-changer? A staggering 53% reduction in inference costs. This makes ERNIE Lite ideal for deployment on even low-powered AI accelerator cards.
ERNIE Tiny: Tiny but mighty, this is the most affordable and lightweight model of the bunch. ERNIE Tiny shines in applications where low latency and cost-effectiveness are paramount, excelling in areas like retrieval, recommendation, and intent recognition. In tests focused on conversational recommendations, ERNIE Tiny displayed exceptional ability to generate search engine keywords, boosting dialogue interactions by 3.5% compared to ERNIE 3.5, all while slashing costs by 32%.

But Baidu AI Cloud’s offerings extend beyond general-purpose models. They’ve also introduced two specialty models:

ERNIE Character: This model injects life into roleplaying scenarios, allowing businesses to create engaging non-playable characters (NPCs) for video games or develop intelligent chatbots for customer service.
ERNIE Functions: Designed for businesses that need to integrate external tools or internal functionalities, ERNIE Functions streamlines the process. Businesses can bypass the fine-tuning stage and directly leverage these pre-trained models to develop their own intelligent assistants.

Baidu AI Cloud has also improved the Qianfan AppBuilder toolkit. This includes 55 new tools designed to make developing AI-native applications a breeze. The toolkit now has a comprehensive suite of features, with everything from core AI capabilities and Baidu’s proprietary technologies to cutting-edge functionalities like Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and Generative Business Intelligence (GBI).

The Qianfan platform has already empowered 80,000 businesses. With daily usage surging by an impressive 97% quarter-over-quarter since December 2023, Qianfan is solidifying its position as a true powerhouse for AI model development.

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