Chinese conglomerate Alibaba has announced plans to make its artificial intelligence (AI) model, Tongyi Qianwen, widely available to the public. The Chinese regulatory has approved the plan, according to a news report published on its WeChat account.
The report also mentioned that in the near future, an open source version of the large language model would become available for free commercial use “by the whole society”.
The company’s cloud intelligence division revealed that several organisations, including OPPO, Taobao, DingTalk, and Zhejiang University, have already agreed to utilise the model for training their own large language models or developing related applications.
Additionally, an open-source version of Tongyi Qianwen will soon be available for free commercial use by the general public, as per the report.
This development comes amidst China’s increased efforts to support homegrown AI companies, as technology becomes a focal point of competition with the US.
Alibaba’s Cloud division chief, Daniel Zhang, recently stepped down from his position and was succeeded by Eddie Wu, who emphasised the importance of AI in the company’s future strategy.
In an internal letter, Wu stated that AI would be the primary driver of change across various industries over the next decade.
Alibaba initially showcased Tongyi Qianwen in April, integrating it into all business applications, with similar capabilities to ChatGPT.
(Inputs from Reuters)
