Tencent throws hat into large model ring

Tencent Cloud, the cloud subsidiary of Chinese internet firm Tencent Holdings, launched its industry-specific large model on Monday, as it strives to explore a cost-effective alternative to ChatGPT amid the cloud and artificial intelligence boom.

Compared with general or universal large models like ChatGPT, industry-specific large models are basically industrial versions of ChatGPT focused on specialized niche sectors. They can better leverage industry data to offer more targeted solutions.

"General or universal large models are mostly trained based on public information that contains errors, rumors and biases and lacks the professional know-how and industry data," said Dowson Tong, Tencent's senior executive vice-president and CEO of the company's cloud and smart industries group.

Data from such models contain too much "noise" and are likely to cause huge legal liabilities or public relations crises. Thus, companies need more industry-specific models, Tong said.

He said Tencent's one-stop industry-specific large model solution has covered 10 major industries, such as finance, culture and tourism, government affairs, media and education, and is able to offer 50 different kinds of solutions.

"In addition, the larger the model is, the higher the cost of training. Companies also tend to choose a suitable model at a reasonable cost," he added.

Amid the worldwide buzz created by OpenAI's AI chatbot ChatGPT, China has developed at least 79 large AI models with over 1 billion parameters each, according to the latest report by the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Currently, companies including Baidu Inc and Alibaba Group have unveiled their general or universal large models. JD disclosed that it is developing an industry-specific large model while Tencent is also developing its Hunyuan large model in addition to the newly unveiled industry-specific large model of Tencent Cloud.

Zhou Ming, founder and CEO of Langboat, a Chinese provider of large language models, said in an earlier interview with China Daily that graphics processing unit (GPU) resources and labor costs need to be taken into consideration if Chinese companies want to develop ChatGPT-like models and solutions.