ERNIE 4.5-21B-A3B

ERNIE 4.5-21B-A3B uses a Mixture-of-Experts design to route each token through a small subset of the model, keeping responses quick while preserving the step-by-step analysis ERNIE is known for. The model is instruction-tuned for careful, controllable behavior; it follows schemas for JSON, calls tools reliably for agent workflows, and maintains coherence on extended prompts for document and code understanding. In production it slots neatly into retrieval-augmented apps, customer and employee copilots, analytics explainers, and bilingual Chinese/English assistants where predictable latency and cost matter. Teams typically choose 21B-A3B when they want more capability than lightweight models without the heavier footprint of the largest ERNIE configurations, while retaining the same API surfaces, streaming, guardrails, and deployment options available through ERNIE Bot and Baidu’s Qianfan platform.