Baidu releases ERNIE-5.1-Preview — #1 Chinese model on LMArena
Baidu
On April 30, 2026, Baidu unveiled a preview version of ERNIE-5.1-Preview. The model debuted at #13 on the global LMArena Text Arena leaderboard with a score of 1476, becoming the top-ranked Chinese model and overtaking DeepSeek-V4-Pro. According to Baidu, the model uses roughly one-third of the total parameters and half the active parameters of ERNIE-5.0, at approximately 6% of the pre-training cost of comparable models. The full ERNIE 5.1 release is expected at the Baidu Create conference.
Why it matters
Confirms the sharp acceleration of the Chinese race following DeepSeek V4: Baidu claims leadership among Chinese labs on LMArena at substantially lower training cost.
Importance: 3/5
Notable preview frontier release from a major Chinese lab with a leading position among CN models on LMArena