Baidu advances AI with new Kunlun chips and Ernie 5.0 model

Chinese tech giant Baidu Inc on Thursday unveiled the latest generation of its self-developed Kunlun chips and the upgraded version of its large language model Ernie 5.0, marking a significant step in boosting the innovation of artificial intelligence technology.

According to the company, the Kunlun M100 chip is designed and optimized for large-scale inference scenarios and is scheduled to be launched in early 2026, while the Kunlun M300 caters to ultra-large-scale, multimodal model training and inference, and will be rolled out in early 2027.

The announcements were made at Baidu World 2025, the company’s annual flagship tech event held in Beijing.

The company also released its latest LLM Ernie 5.0 model, which contains 2.4 trillion parameters capable of multimodal understanding and generation capacities, including text, images, audio and video inputs and outputs.

The model features a comprehensive upgrade in its core capabilities, excelling in multimodal understanding, instruction following and creative writing, and demonstrating strong abilities in terms of comprehension, logic, memory and persuasive abilities.

Robin Li, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Baidu, said the LLM technology is evolving rapidly with the ability to self-learn, iterate and innovate, emphasizing that the company will continue investing in cutting-edge AI models to boost technological innovation.

He said in the past, the AI industry structure resembled an upright pyramid and the chip layer at the bottom captured the majority of the value, while the models and applications have seen their economic returns decrease progressively.

However, this industry structure is unhealthy and unsustainable, Li noted, adding that the models built on the top of the chips as well as applications should generate more value.