What’s new: China’s social media and online gaming giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. launched an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot app Yuanbao, joining a crowded race to develop applications to challenge OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Yuanbao is built on Tencent’s own large language model (LLM) known as Hunyuan. An LLM is a deep-learning algorithm that lies behind ChatGPT and other generative AI services.
Tencent’s AI assistant allows users to perform tasks such as AI searches, document summarization, writing, image generation and the creation of personalized AI entities for language practice or creating AI avatars.
Hunyuan has been in a continuous process of enhancement for the past year and is now a trillion-parameter model, Liu Yuhong, vice president of Tencent Cloud and head of the Hunyuan project.
Tencent, which operates super app WeChat, is not just aiming for large-scale deployment of Yuanbao but is focusing on integrating it within its existing product ecosystem and leveraging its strong engineering capabilities to enhance user experiences, particularly in AI-enhanced search functions, said Liu.
The context: Chinese tech pioneers have joined Silicon Valley peers such as Microsoft Corp. in placing big bets on generative AI. Leaders including Baidu Inc., Alibaba Group holding Ltd., and ByteDance Ltd. have released their ChatGPT-like services.
Tencent is racing to close the gap with peers in generative AI products. Earlier this month, ByteDance, the Chinese parent of TikTok, launched its own generative AI model Doubao, which is said to have amassed more than 26 million monthly active users. Baidu said last month its Ernie Bot had 200 million users.
According to mobile data research firm Quest Mobile, as of March, the number of users of generative artificial intelligence apps in China reached 73.8 million, an increase of 816.9% year-on-year, but this accounts for only 6% of the total mobile internet user base.
Contact reporter Han Wei (weihan@caixin.com)
