Baidu Releases ERNIE 5.5 Flash Base: 280 Billion Parameters, Open Weights
Baidu has released ERNIE 5.5 Flash Base as open source. It's a foundation model with 280 billion parameters. That makes it one of the largest open-weight releases from a major Chinese AI lab. The release puts Baidu up against Meta's Llama series and Mistral in the race for open-source developers. Baidu pitches the model as a base for fine-tuning, for both enterprise and research work. The timing is notable. JPMorgan just cut its target prices for Chinese AI peers Zhipu and MiniMax. The bank pointed to demand gaps after the AI coding boom.
280 billion parameters released as an open-source foundation model
Baidu just put out its biggest open-weight model yet. It goes head to head with Llama and Mistral.
Timed right as analysts cut their ratings on Chinese AI companies, citing worries about demand