Baidu just dropped an open-source multimodal AI that it claims beats GPT-5 and Gemini

On November 12, 2025, Baidu Inc. unveiled its latest AI model, ERNIE-4.5-VL-28B-A3B-Thinking, asserting that it outperforms major competitors like Google's Gemini and OpenAI's GPT-5. This claim is notable as it comes from the largest search engine company in China, emphasizing the growing rivalry in the AI sector. The model's efficiency is particularly striking; it operates using only 3 billion active parameters while maintaining a total of 28 billion parameters. This innovative routing architecture allows it to match or exceed the performance of larger systems, making it a significant player in the market. As enterprises increasingly seek AI solutions that can process and understand images, videos, and documents alongside text, Baidu's release is timely and relevant, potentially reshaping the landscape of AI applications in various industries.