China Aims to Compete With OpenAI, Gemini & Grok

Uploaded on 2024-08-30 in TECHNOLOGY-Key Areas-Artificial Intelligence, TECHNOLOGY--Developments, INTELLIGENCE-Hot Spots-China, FREE TO VIEW

In July, OpenAI, the company behind the generative AI service ChatGPT, announced that it would block access to its tools and services in China, Hong Kong, and Macau. This move was seen as an escalation in the technology war between the United States and China.

The US and China cold war continues as Chinese AI companies have been developing its AI technology and are now releasing competitors to OpenAI and other leading US platforms like Google's Gemini and Elon Musk's Grok. Now, Chinese AI firm SenseTime launches it’s GPT-4 competitor.

SenseNova 5.5, which was at at the recent World AI Conference in Shanghai, is said by its maker, SenseTime, to be equal to GPT-4, the important GenAI model created by OpenAI.

SenseTime’s plans to engage with new users by giving away 50 million free tokens, and to provide staff to assist users shifting from OpenAI to their free services. The plan is aimed at developers who are suffered the cost of OpenAI’s recent steps to ensure Chinese users would be blocked from accessing its tools and services.

Despite ChatGPT already being blocked China were able to access OpenAI’s tools through virtual private networks (VPN). Now, with OpenAI blocking access from their own side as well, Chinese developers are swiftly looking for other options. Consequently, OpenAI’s China ban has opened an opportunity for Chinese AI companies like SenseTime and other AI products, and these companies are also offering rewards to attract OpenAI ex-users.
Consequently,

OpenAI’s decision to ban their products in China could unintentionally accelerate the rise of Chinese AI companies, which are already fiercely competing with their US counterparts.

Currently, China hosts at least 130 large language models, comprising 40% of the global total, second only to the US. Furthermore, according to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), China has filed over six times more generative AI patents than the US and so it has become major in the AI market.

The new release version of AliBaba's Qwen2-VL, a new vision-language AI model - is claimed by its maker to outperform GPT-4 in several benchmarks - particularly excelling in document comprehension and multilingual text-image understanding.

The potential of AI to soon pass the Turing Test opens a Pandora’s box of ethical, philosophical, and regulatory questions.

While it’s a monumental scientific achievement, it also calls into question how we define intelligence and consciousness, and underscores the urgent need for robust ethical standards and safeguards in AI development and interaction.

Image: @SenseTime_AI

You Might Also Read:

NSA Warning: China Is Stealing AI Technology:

If you like this website and use the comprehensive 7,000-plus service supplier Directory, you can get unrestricted access, including the exclusive in-depth Directors Report series, by signing up for a Premium Subscription.