By Zainab Shafiq 
Baidu, the leading Chinese technology firm, has taken a significant leap forward in the AI race with its latest AI chatbot, Ernie 3.5. Surpassing OpenAI’s ChatGPT (3.5) in comprehensive ability scores and even outperforming GPT-4 in various Chinese language capabilities, Ernie 3.5 has proven its prowess during beta testing.
In a recent blog post, Baidu proudly announced the impressive advancements of Ernie 3.5. Dr. Haifeng Wang, the CTO of Baidu, highlighted the chatbot’s exceptional performance in creative writing, Q&A, reasoning, and code generation.
Dr. Haifeng emphasized the broad range of applications for Ernie Bot, stating that any tasks involving language, text, or code could potentially benefit from its capabilities. The chatbot’s versatility extends to various fields such as smart offices, coding, marketing, media, education, and finance.
During the announcement, Baidu also shed light on the significance of plugins in the AI industry. Ernie 3.5 distinguishes itself by incorporating plugins, including the default Baidu Search plugin and the ChatFile plugin, which facilitates long text summaries and question/answer functionalities.
Dr. Haifeng expressed Baidu’s commitment to fostering an open plugin ecosystem, welcoming third-party developers to create their own plugins and build unique applications based on Ernie.
With these remarkable advancements, Baidu has closed the gap in the AI race, proving that China is quickly catching up in AI development. Ernie 3.5’s achievements demonstrate the potential for groundbreaking applications and highlight Baidu’s commitment to innovation in the AI landscape.