Chinese tech giant Alibaba unveiled its latest ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence (AI) model product – Tongyi Qianwen – on Tuesday.
The large-language AI model product can handle various types of office communications, intelligent voice assistance, turn text into images and short videos, and customize individual work plans which the company said could improve work efficiency.
Zhang Yong, chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group, said that all Alibaba products will be connected to Tongyi Qianwen in an impending comprehensive transformation in the near future.
Recently, there has been a surge in popularity of large AI models triggered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Chinese search giant Baidu officially released its large language model and generative AI product, the ERNIE Bot, on March 16. He Xiaodong, vice president of JD.com Group, said that its new large-scale model ChatJD is set to be released this year. Huawei also recently announced the progress and applications of its Pangu AI model. 360AI, developed based on the 360GPT large language model, was first used in search engines on April 9.
Other AI products by the likes of Tencent and ByteDance are expected to be unveiled soon.
Backed by China’s massive base of internet users, Chinese enterprises have pressed the accelerator for the development of large AI models – from computing power to application.
At the same time, Chinese enterprises still face many challenges ranging from issues relating to talent, algorithm and model quality, to business model and security issues.
China’s authorities are also ramping up policies for the sector. On Tuesday, the Cyberspace Administration of China issued a statement to solicit public opinions on policies to regulate the AI space.
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