(Bloomberg) — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. Among them are influential Chinese investors who invested 2.5 billion yuan ($342 million) in artificial intelligence startup Zhipu this year, part of a wave of capital pouring into a hot field. .
Most Read from Bloomberg
The country’s two biggest tech companies have joined rivals and peers from Ant Group Inc to Xiaomi Corp in backing Beijing Zhipu Huazhang Technology, one of several private companies trying to create domestic rivals to ChatGPT’s OpenAIs. HongShan, formerly Sequoia China, and food delivery leader Meituan also participated, according to the company’s statement. Many of the same companies joined rival Zhipo Baichuan’s recent $300 million funding round.
Zippo and Baichuan are among the well-known startups developing generative artificial intelligence, hoping to match Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Google. Venture capital firms and tech leaders are pouring billions of dollars into training and developing artificial intelligence services, marking a flurry of activity across Silicon Valley and Europe. On Tuesday, Baidu Inc’s billionaire founder Robin Li put his company’s big language model Ernie on par with OpenAIs GPT-4, claiming a lead in that nationwide race.
Read more: Billionaires and bureaucrats mobilize China for AI race with US
Beijing-based Zippo was among the first Chinese companies to win government approval for a public offering in August. Since then, it has released an open source model as well as a chatbot called Qingyan.
The interest in Zhipu and his peers shows how the growing US-China competition in artificial intelligence has broader implications. Many industries from transportation to media and finance are expected to transform, potentially fueling a new phase of economic growth. The technology also has government and military applications that could complicate tense relations between Washington and Beijing.
The United States this month tightened restrictions on China’s access to advanced chips made by companies such as Nvidia Corp that are used to train and run artificial intelligence models. Many Chinese industry experts say local AI developers may eventually be forced to turn to domestic alternatives, although Washington has added companies designing AI chips to its blacklist of restricted companies.
Most read from Bloomberg Businessweek
2023 Bloomberg LP
#Alibaba #Tencent #join #million #funding #startup #Zhipu
Image Source : finance.yahoo.com