Firms racing to meet AI tech challenge

SparkDesk, iFlytek's in-house AI large language model, was unveiled in May. WANG GANG/FOR CHINA DAILY

Liu Qingfeng, chairman of iFlytek, a Chinese AI pioneer, said: "Chinese companies must devote big, real money to research and development in fundamental science to achieve breakthroughs in AI. The impact of this generative AI technology is no less important than that of the birth of the PC or the internet. We need to do our best to learn from ChatGPT and even seek to surpass it."

The company unveiled its in-house AI LLM SparkDesk at a launch event in May, which iFlytek said aims to exceed ChatGPT's capabilities in understanding Chinese and reach its standards in English.

Liu from iFlytek held a live demonstration of its SparkDesk chatbot in both consumer-oriented and enterprise-focused applications in May. He used voice-recognition prompts to ask SparkDesk in Chinese and English to assess student essays and write hypothetical stories about Confucius' attendance at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Shanghai-based AI company SenseTime also unveiled its self-developed LLM SenseNova in April, introducing a variety of foundation models and capabilities in natural language processing, content generation, automated data annotation and custom model training. It also demonstrated a series of generative AI models and applications, such as text-to-image creation and 2D/3D digital human generation.

Xu Li, chairman and CEO of SenseTime, said: "In the era of artificial general intelligence, the three elements of data, algorithms and computing power are undergoing a new evolution. The number of model parameters will increase exponentially, and the volume of data will grow massively with the introduction of multimodalities, leading to a continuous surge in demand for computing power. We have built the infrastructure for the AGI era with SenseCore and named our foundation model set as 'SenseNova', implying 'constant renewal, daily renewal and further renewal'. We hope to continuously update the models' iteration speed and their problem-solving capabilities, unlocking more possibilities for artificial general intelligence."

Market consultancy Gartner predicts that by 2025, generative AI will account for 10 percent of all data created, compared with less than 1 percent last year, and it could be used for activities such as creating software code, facilitating drug development and targeted marketing.

The AI boom is also expected to spur demand for computing power, such as domestic AI servers, cloud computing and chips, as Washington restricts the export of US company Nvidia's most advanced AI chips to China, experts said.

To help accelerate domestic breakthroughs, Beijing and Shenzhen announced favorable policies in May to support the development of domestically developed AI chips.

iFlytek said it has built first-class data centers at its headquarters in Hefei, Anhui province. Specifically, its deep-learning computing platform is supported by seven data centers in four cities, laying a good hardware computing foundation for the development of its AI large language model.

The company also said it has developed AI training and reasoning solutions powered by domestic computing platforms.

Shen Yang, a professor of journalism and director of the Metaverse Culture Laboratory at Tsinghua University, said generative AI has made significant progress, but it also raises concerns about ethics, copyright protection and privacy, Shen said.

ChatGPT-like applications can free human creators from tedious tasks, but they will not replace humans, Shen added.

This is in line with what ChatGPT wrote when prompted by Israeli President Isaac Herzog in February with the task: "Write an inspirational quote about the role of humanity in a world of superhuman technology."

The answer generated by ChatGPT was: "Let us not forget that our humanity is what makes us truly special. It is not the machines that will shape our destiny but rather our hearts, minds and determination to create a brighter tomorrow for all humanity."