Alibaba upgrades AI model Tongyi Qianwen, introduces new industry-specific models
Alibaba unveiled on Tuesday that it has enhanced its artificial intelligence (AI) model, Tongyi Qianwen, and launched a collection of AI models tailored for specific industries. This development comes as tech firms vie for dominance in China's rapidly growing AI market. With "hundreds of billions of" parameters, a metric used to gauge AI model strength, the upgraded Tongyi Qianwen 2.0 now ranks among the most powerful AI models globally.
Industry-specific AI models launched
Alibaba introduced eight AI models designed for the entertainment, finance, healthcare, and legal sectors. These specialized models provide tools for generating images, coding software, examining financial information, and locating legal documents. This update comes merely six months after Tongyi Qianwen's initial launch, highlighting the fierce competition in China's emerging AI market.
China's 'war of a hundred models'
Last month, Tencent, a rival company, characterized China as experiencing a "war of a hundred models," with over 130 AI models inundating the market. Tencent's Hunyuan AI boasts more than 100 billion parameters and outperforms OpenAI's GPT-4 model in processing Chinese. In comparison, Microsoft-backed OpenAI's GPT-3 AI model had 175 billion parameters in 2020, while Meta Platform's Llama 2 model contained 70 billion parameters in 2023.
Alibaba Cloud and ModelScope platform
During the annual conference in Hangzhou, Alibaba Chairman Joe Tsai disclosed that nearly half of China's large-language AI models currently operate on Alibaba Cloud. He also mentioned that ModelScope, Alibaba's AI model-sharing platform, now hosts 2,300 models and has a community of 2.7 million contributing developers. These advancements in AI technology and the expanding platform underscore Alibaba's dedication to remaining competitive in the fast-paced AI market.
