Chinese language tech big Tencent is launching its synthetic intelligence mannequin “Hunyuan” for enterprise use at an annual summit on Thursday, Dowson Tong, CEO of the cloud and good industries group at Tencent, instructed CNBC in an unique interview forward of the occasion.
The information comes days after Baidu revealed a slew of AI-powered purposes on Tuesday within the wake of extra supportive regulation.
Tencent has mentioned it was internally testing its Hunyuan AI mannequin on promoting and fintech. The gaming and social media big can also be set to launch an AI chatbot on Thursday, the corporate mentioned in an online post.
Tencent is integrating Hunyuan’s capabilities with its current merchandise for video conferencing and social media, Tong instructed CNBC.
The corporate operates WeChat, a broadly used messaging and funds app in China, and video convention platform Tencent Assembly.
Baidu and several other different Chinese language firms acquired the inexperienced gentle in the previous few weeks to launch AI-powered chatbots to the general public.
Much like ChatGPT, the bots purport to reply to queries in a human-like, conversational trend — however primarily in Chinese language. Some, corresponding to Baidu’s Ernie bot, additionally convert textual content to photographs and video, with the assistance of plugins.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT is not formally out there in China. The chatbot releases comply with new Chinese language regulation on generative AI that took impact Aug. 15.
When requested concerning the guidelines, Tong identified that such synthetic intelligence is so new that nobody is aware of what impression it is going to have on society.
“It is prudent to place in some guardrails in place,” he mentioned. That may assist ensure that the expertise or the providers being provided are of excessive sufficient high quality so they do not create and distribute false data, he mentioned.
Chinese language authorities mentioned the “interim” guidelines that took impact final month wouldn’t apply to firms creating the AI tech so long as the product was not out there to the mass public.
That is extra relaxed than a draft launched in April that mentioned forthcoming guidelines would apply even on the analysis stage.
Improvement constraints
Whereas Beijing has proven it’s extra supportive of generative AI than initially feared, Chinese language firms additionally face U.S. restrictions on obtaining advanced semiconductors. Essentially the most leading edge variations of the high-tech chips, generally known as graphics processing models (GPUs), enable firms to coach AI fashions.
“The constraint that we’re dealing with will hinder the progress, the velocity of improvement,” Tong instructed CNBC in response to a query about U.S. restrictions.
He famous demand for computing energy general far exceeds provide in China. To mitigate the scarcity, he mentioned firms are “specializing in particular use circumstances, constructing fashions of the suitable dimension.”
“And we hope that the provision of the GPU compute shall be bigger within the coming months, and due to this fact the event of those applied sciences can get sooner.”
AI for enterprise
Tencent is only one of many firms in China — starting from startups to cellphone maker Huawei — which have rushed to announce AI merchandise this yr. In August, Alibaba introduced it was opening its personal AI mannequin to third-party builders.
Synthetic intelligence requires industry-specific coaching for the expertise to generate worth, Tencent’s Tong mentioned. He listed enterprise use circumstances in tourism, finance, public providers and customer support.
“We consider many various clients, the truth is, would profit extra by leveraging open-source fashions and use their very own enterprise knowledge to coach for their very own fashions to fulfill the very particular wants of their industrial use circumstances,” he mentioned.
That designated use may also assist with knowledge safety, he mentioned.
