China is 6 months behind the US on AI products

A former head of Google China Kai-Fu Lee has revealed the Asian country’s AI products and applications are about six to nine months behind their US counterparts. However, the proliferation of AI products in China is expected to be at a faster pace than in the US.

Kai-Fu Lee who is also the founder of the AI startup 01.AI, was commenting in reference to large language models (LLMs) which are capable of processing huge quantities of data, also able to process and produce text, images, and videos.

Lee predicts China will build the best AI apps

Speaking at the AVCJ Private Equity Forum China on Wednesday, Lee said while major Chinese companies’ LLMs trail behind their US contenders by six to nine months, less advanced models from China could be behind the US models by up to 15 months.

“Apps, I would predict, by early next year will proliferate in China much faster than in the US,” Lee said, noting that the cost of training a good AI model has fallen significantly.

“It’s inevitable that China will [build] the best AI apps in the world. But it’s not clear whether it will be built by big companies or small companies.”

Lee.

Apart from heading Google China, Lee is also the author of “AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order.” The tech guru also runs a venture capital firm called Sinovation Ventures.

Lee said it might require more than five years, but at least eight years to improve generative AI consumer applications to become a single super app that performs multiple tasks.

He further pointed out that the industry will need to revamp and upgrade to new devices compared to the existing smartphones, citing that, “the right device ought to be always on and always listening.”

Tech firms in AI race in China

According to Lee, China is making progress in the field of AI. He pointed out some of the top Chinese firms like Alibaba, Tencent, and quite a number of investors that had launched their AI models, startups, and business products, contributing to the cut-throat AI industry.

These have been innovating to stay ahead of the competition, not only in China but across Asia and even the Western markets like the US and Europe.

The launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022 to immediate success sparked a wave of AI excitement that saw tech firms scrambling to create their own alternatives and tap into the growing market for the technology.

Although not officially available in China, the market in that country also managed to access ChatGPT via VPNs. Tech firms in the country also took it upon themselves to come up with their ChatGPT alternatives which saw search engine giant Baidu launch its own chatbot, Ernie Bot.

Several other Chinese tech giants also followed suit in developing AI models, attracted by its transformative abilities across all sectors of the economy.

On Wednesday, ShengShu Technology, which is backed by Ant Group, an affiliate of Alibaba unveiled a new product, a text-to-video model known as Vidu. This model, according to the tech firm enhances how a main character in AI-generated clips can be portrayed reliably, short of misrepresentation.

According to CNBC, this new feature will help advertisers in coming up with promotional videos for their merchandise.

Jiayu Tang the co-founder and chief executive officer of Vidu told reporters on Wednesday that several firms have shown interest in acquiring ShengShu’s services.

Released earlier this year, the Shengshu’s Technology-owned Vidu was released early this year and has advanced capabilities available via subscription although it also has its basic tools open to the public.