Alibaba to roll out its rival to ChatGPT across all its products

Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing unit of Chinese tech large Alibaba, introduced Tuesday it is going to be rolling out its personal ChatGPT-style product Tongyi Qianwen.

Tongyi Qianwen, which possess Chinese and English language capabilities, will initially be deployed on DingTalk, Alibaba’s office communication software program, and Tmall Genie, a supplier of sensible house home equipment, the corporate mentioned in a launch.

Hong Kong-listed shares of Alibaba gained traded greater than 3% larger after the announcement however has since pared some good points. Shares of Baidu in Hong Kong had been down 6%.

At the 2023 Alibaba Cloud Summit, the corporate mentioned it is going to be rolling out the substitute intelligence-powered chatbot into all Alibaba merchandise from enterprise communication to e-commerce in “the near future.” It didn’t reveal a timeline.

“We are at a technological watershed moment driven by generative AI and cloud computing, and businesses across all sectors have started to embrace intelligence transformation to stay ahead of the game,” mentioned Daniel Zhang, chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group and CEO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, in a press release.

Alibaba first advised CNBC it was engaged on a ChatGPT rival in February.

“The new AI model will be integrated across Alibaba’s various businesses to improve user experience in the near future. The company’s customers and developers will have access to the model to create customised AI features in a cost-effective way,” the corporate mentioned.

Alibaba Cloud will provide its purchasers entry to Tongyi Qianwen on the cloud and assist them construct custom-made massive language fashions.

The chatbot shall be ”fine-tuned” with proprietary data and information from purchasers, lowering assets and prices for these firms. Alibaba Cloud’s enterprise prospects in China will have the ability to entry Tongyi Qianwen for beta testing.

“We hope to facilitate businesses from all industries with their intelligence transformation and, ultimately, help boost their business productivity, expand their expertise and capabilities while unlocking more exciting opportunities through innovations,” mentioned Jingren Zhou, CTO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, within the launch.

Developers in China may apply for beta testing of Tongyi Qianwen to create their AI functions at scale, the corporate mentioned.

Users can anticipate “more compelling” AI options similar to picture understanding and text-to-image to be added to the Tongyi Qianwen mannequin quickly.

Alibaba is the most recent Chinese participant after Baidu to disclose ChatGPT alternate options. Baidu revealed its personal ChatGPT model, Ernie Bot, in March.

Chinese expertise giants from Alibaba to Baidu to NetEase have introduced their intentions to launch ChatGPT-style merchandise.

Alibaba has maintained its place because the third main public cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) supplier globally since 2018, in line with International Data Corporation.

The tech firm additionally holds the positions of world’s third main and Asia Pacific’s main IaaS supplier by income in U.S. {dollars} since 2018, in line with expertise analysis agency Gartner.