Baidu founder and CEO Robin Li used the company's latest earnings call to set a clear goal for its Ernie large language models: speed up iteration and get back into the top tier of foundation models. He acknowledged that Baidu — one of the earliest Chinese companies to invest in foundation models — has "had its share of trial and error" along the way, and said the company will keep pouring resources in.
Li said the foundation model race is far from decided; every few months, a different model pulls ahead on some capabilities. Baidu will keep investing in Ernie, while adjusting its organization and recruiting top AI talent to accelerate updates.
Baidu isn't trying to make Ernie first at everything, though. Li said the company will prioritize strengthening the capabilities Baidu itself needs most — AI search, digital humans, Miaoda, and general-purpose agents — then feed the feedback from those products back into Ernie's training.