Chinese technology conglomerate Tencent has announced that its Hunyuan large language model (LLM) will now be available for enterprise use. This move comes as Chinese companies aim to establish themselves as leaders in the technology and generative AI industry.
Tencent’s vice president, Jiang Jie, stated that there are currently over 130 LLMs in China, with companies like Baidu and SenseTime also unveiling their own AI models. Hunyuan is an AI model with over 100 billion parameters and was trained with more than 2 trillion tokens. Comparatively, OpenAI’s GPT-3 AI model had 175 billion parameters, and Meta’s Llama-2 had 70 billion parameters.
Tencent claims that over 50 of its products and services, including the popular WeChat social media app, are now running on Hunyuan. The company also asserts that Hunyuan outperforms ChatGPT in writing long text and solving math problems, while experiencing 30% less hallucinations (where AI models provide false or made-up information) compared to Llama-2.
In a separate development, Baidu has claimed that its AI model, Ernie, outperformed OpenAI’s ChatGPT in a series of tests.
China’s Ambition in AI
China has been proactive in regulating AI, becoming one of the first countries to do so. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) introduced draft measures to manage generative AI services, which include holding providers responsible for the validity of the data used to train AI tools. Chinese law now requires AI firms to submit security assessments and ensure that AI-generated content aligns with the country’s core socialist values.
Failure to comply with these regulations can result in fines, service suspensions, or even criminal investigations. In fact, a man was detained in China in May for allegedly using ChatGPT to create fake news articles.
However, China’s tech prospects may face challenges due to the ongoing trade war with the United States. President Joe Biden has signed executive orders limiting the sale of certain AI-related exports to China, including semiconductors, microelectronics, and AI systems used in military or intelligence operations.
Overall, Tencent’s launch of the Hunyuan AI model for enterprise use is another significant step in China’s ambition to be at the forefront of AI technology.
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