ChatGPT rival? Tencent launches Hunyuan AI model amid US chip ban

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Chinese firm Tencent has announced the commercial release of its new artificial intelligence (AI) large language model.

The tech firm unveiled the new model during its Global Digital Ecosystem Summit in Shenzhen, demonstrating the product’s capabilities to attendees. Dubbed Hunyuan, Tencent says its AI model will offer enterprises advanced logical reasoning and Chinese language processing ability.

“Tencent’s foundation model supports a wide array of functions spanning the creation of images, copywriting, text recognition, and customer service, to name a few,” said Tencent. “These will be instrumental in key industries like finance, public service, social media, e-commerce, transportation, games, and many more.”

Tencent is adopting a Model-as-a-Service (MaaS) in its latest offering, designed to allow enterprises to train their AI models. Hunyuan provides enterprises with well over 40 solutions in 20 industries, which Tencent describes as “economically viable” large models.

“This creates a virtuous cycle in which enterprises refine their large models with Hunyuan to create uniquely intelligent services across their operations,” said Tencent.

At the moment, Hunyuan has been integrated into a suite of Tencent’s services, ranging from its QQ Browser, Weixin Search, marketing solutions, and games. Using the AI model, Tencent Meeting offers an AI assistant who can generate meeting minutes with Hunyuan, supporting the creation of AI-generated advertising content.

Senior Executive Vice President of Tencent Dowson Tong stated during the Summit that Hunyuan stands out from the array of AI models given its world-class privacy standards, lower costs, and depth of proprietary data.

With over 100 billion parameters and 2 trillion tokens in pre-training data, Tencent’s Hunyuan appears to be the most robust AI offering within the local Chinese ecosystem, offering a worthy alternative to the geo-restricted ChatGPT.

Tong added that Hunyuan’s launch will assist Tencent’s expansionist ambitions to new frontiers. Tencent is eyeing a strong presence in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Regulatory clarity spawns innovation

Barely a month after the Chinese government launched comprehensive AI rules, a number of Chinese firms have all rolled out their AI-related products. Baidu’s AI-powered chatbot Ernie surged to the top of the App Stores, while Alibaba and ByteDance are set to launch new solutions.

China’s newly minted rules direct AI developers to label all AI-generated content clearly and prevent discrimination based on age, sex, or ethnicity. Contrary to its handling of digital assets, Chinese authorities are adopting a hands-on approach to AI regulation to prevent its misuse by bad actors.

In order for artificial intelligence (AI) to work right within the law and thrive in the face of growing challenges, it needs to integrate an enterprise blockchain system that ensures data input quality and ownership—allowing it to keep data safe while also guaranteeing the immutability of data. Check out CoinGeek’s coverage on this emerging tech to learn more why Enterprise blockchain will be the backbone of AI.

Watch: Blockchain can bring accountability to AI