Baidu Upgrades PaddleOCR 3.1 with Multilingual & MCP Support
Baidu's PaddleOCR 3.1 Elevates Document AI Capabilities
July 8, 2025 – Baidu's AI research team has released PaddleOCR 3.1, a significant upgrade to its open-source optical character recognition platform. The new version introduces three breakthrough features targeting global enterprise applications.
Multilingual Recognition Breakthrough
The update debuts the PP-OCRv5 multilingual model, expanding support to 37 languages including French, Spanish, and Russian. By integrating Baidu's ERNIE 4.5 multimodal large model, the system achieves:
- 30% average accuracy boost in Latin and East Slavic languages
- Korean error rate reduction from 8.7% to 2.1%
- 2x faster processing for complex Russian document layouts
Intelligent Document Translation Pipeline
The new PP-DocTranslation tool combines:
- Table/formula recognition via PP-StructureV3 engine
- ERNIE-powered contextual understanding
- Markdown conversion for translated outputs
Enterprise users can upload industry-specific terminology tables for precision in legal/medical translations. Early adopters report:
- 40% efficiency gains in pharmaceutical documentation
- 99.2% terminology consistency in regulated fields
Developer-Focused MCP Integration
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) server enables:
- Standardized API access to OCR functions
- Local Python library deployment options
- Self-hosted service configurations through PaddlePaddle's Starry Sky Community
"This lowers the barrier for developers to integrate production-grade OCR," noted a Baidu technical spokesperson.
Key Points:
- 🚀 37-language support with PP-OCRv5 model
- 📑 Document translation pipeline handles complex layouts
- ⚙️ MCP server simplifies AI application integration
- 🔍 Open-source availability: GitHub