Beijing to support companies to develop ChatGPT-like models

Beijing, home to more than 1,000 artificial intelligence companies, will support leading enterprises to develop ChatGPT-like models, as part of the municipality's broader efforts to be a pioneering AI hub.

The move comes as ChatGPT has taken the world by storm since its launch in November by US-based AI research company OpenAI, triggering an AI wave among startups and established companies alike.

Boasting advanced conversational capabilities, ChatGPT is able to mimic humanlike responses with AI-generated content that can assist people with tasks such as writing essays and scripts.

The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology said in a white paper on Monday that efforts will be made to support leading enterprises to build big AI models benchmarking ChatGPT, and focus on building an application ecosystem for open-source AI frameworks.

The white paper, which was released during an AI conference in Beijing, showed that the capital had 1,048 AI-related enterprises such as Baidu Inc as of October, accounting for about 29 percent of the country's total.

Baidu Inc last week announced a similar AI chatbot project called Ernie Bot, which will complete its internal testing in March before going public.

Beijing has more than 40,000 core AI-related talent, accounting for 60 percent of China's total. The capital also ranks first nationwide in terms of the number of AI-related research papers. Among the top 100 institutions in the world for AI patent licenses, 30 are based in Beijing, the white paper said.

The white paper also said Beijing will step up its push to accelerate the construction of a national AI innovation and application pilot zone, focusing on promoting applications such as autonomous driving, intelligent manufacturing and smart cities.

Liao Xiangke, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said at the AI conference on Monday that the nation needs to accelerate the integration of AI into more industries and establish overall competitive advantages in AI technology as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, efforts are needed to build data-sharing and security management mechanisms, and to better tap the potential value of data, Liao said.

The comments came as China has made strides in filing AI patents and experimenting with the latest AI technologies to power industrial applications. A Stanford University report said China filed more than half of the world's AI patent applications in 2021, and Chinese researchers have been the most prolific for several years, publishing 27.5 percent of all AI journal articles worldwide in 2021.

In economic investment, China also accounted for nearly one-fifth of global private investment funding in 2021, attracting $17 billion for AI startups — a sign of a robust AI ecosystem, according to the Stanford University report.

On Monday, a new AI computing center, which was jointly built by Huawei Technologies Co and the government of Mentougou, a district in Beijing, was unveiled.

Yang Chaoyue, vice-president of Huawei, said with the rapid development of the AI industry, computing power will become increasingly important.