In November, a year after ChatGPT’s release, a relatively unknown Chinese startup leaped to the top of a leader board that judged the abilities of open-source artificial intelligence systems. The Chinese firm, 01.AI, was only eight months old but had deep-pocketed backers and a $1 billion valuation and was founded by a well-known investor and technologist, Kai-Fu Lee.In interviews, Lee presented his AI system as an alternative to options such as Meta’s generative AI model, called LLaMA.
There was just one twist: Some of the technology in 01.AI’s system came from LLaMA. Lee’s startup then built on Meta’s technology, training its system with new data to make it more powerful.
The situation is emblematic of a reality that many in China openly admit. Even as the country races to build generative AI, Chinese companies are relying almost entirely on underlying systems from the United States. China now lags the United States in generative AI by at least a year and may be falling further behind, according to more than a dozen tech industry insiders and leading engineers, setting the stage for a new phase in the cutthroat technological competition between the two nations that some have likened to a cold war. “Chinese companies are under tremendous pressure to keep abreast of US innovations,” said Chris Nicholson, an investor with the venture capital firm Page One Ventures who focuses on AI technologies. The release of ChatGPT was “yet another Sputnik moment that China felt it had to respond to.”
Jenny Xiao, a partner at Leonis Capital, an investment firm that focuses on AI-powered companies, said the AI models that Chinese firms build from scratch “aren’t very good,” leading to many of them often using “fine-tuned versions of Western models.” She said China was two to three years behind the United States in generative AI developments.
The jockeying for AI primacy has huge implications. Breakthroughs in generative AI could tip the global technological balance of power, increasing people’s productivity, aiding industries and leading to future innovations.
As Chinese firms aim to catch up by turning to open-source AI models from the United States, Washington is in a difficult spot. Even as the United States has tried to slow China’s advancements by limiting the sale of microchips and curbing investments, it has not held back the practice of openly releasing software to encourage its adoption.
For China, the newfound reliance on AI systems from the United States – primarily Meta’s LLaMA – has fuelled deeper questions about the country’s innovation model, which in recent decades surprised many by turning out world-beating firms such as Alibaba and ByteDance.
“When Chinese companies are leveraging American open-source technologies to play catch-up, the questions become very complicated – wrapped up in issues of national security and geopolitics,” said Oren Etzioni, a University of Washington professor who specializes in AI and the founder of TrueMedia.org, a nonprofit working to identify disinformation online in political campaigns.
In an emailed statement, Lee, 01.AI’s founder, said his startup’s AI model was built on LLaMA just “like most other AI firms,” adding that using open-source technologies is a standard practice.
There was just one twist: Some of the technology in 01.AI’s system came from LLaMA. Lee’s startup then built on Meta’s technology, training its system with new data to make it more powerful.
The situation is emblematic of a reality that many in China openly admit. Even as the country races to build generative AI, Chinese companies are relying almost entirely on underlying systems from the United States. China now lags the United States in generative AI by at least a year and may be falling further behind, according to more than a dozen tech industry insiders and leading engineers, setting the stage for a new phase in the cutthroat technological competition between the two nations that some have likened to a cold war. “Chinese companies are under tremendous pressure to keep abreast of US innovations,” said Chris Nicholson, an investor with the venture capital firm Page One Ventures who focuses on AI technologies. The release of ChatGPT was “yet another Sputnik moment that China felt it had to respond to.”
Jenny Xiao, a partner at Leonis Capital, an investment firm that focuses on AI-powered companies, said the AI models that Chinese firms build from scratch “aren’t very good,” leading to many of them often using “fine-tuned versions of Western models.” She said China was two to three years behind the United States in generative AI developments.
The jockeying for AI primacy has huge implications. Breakthroughs in generative AI could tip the global technological balance of power, increasing people’s productivity, aiding industries and leading to future innovations.
As Chinese firms aim to catch up by turning to open-source AI models from the United States, Washington is in a difficult spot. Even as the United States has tried to slow China’s advancements by limiting the sale of microchips and curbing investments, it has not held back the practice of openly releasing software to encourage its adoption.
For China, the newfound reliance on AI systems from the United States – primarily Meta’s LLaMA – has fuelled deeper questions about the country’s innovation model, which in recent decades surprised many by turning out world-beating firms such as Alibaba and ByteDance.
“When Chinese companies are leveraging American open-source technologies to play catch-up, the questions become very complicated – wrapped up in issues of national security and geopolitics,” said Oren Etzioni, a University of Washington professor who specializes in AI and the founder of TrueMedia.org, a nonprofit working to identify disinformation online in political campaigns.
In an emailed statement, Lee, 01.AI’s founder, said his startup’s AI model was built on LLaMA just “like most other AI firms,” adding that using open-source technologies is a standard practice.