More than 40 artificial intelligence (AI) models have been approved for public use by China in the last six months, reports Reuters.
Chinese media claims regulators in the country gave the green light to 14 large language models (LLM) last week, which is the fourth batch of approvals Beijing has granted since August last year as it attempts to play catch up with the US in the AI sector. The decision to keep AI technology under control by regulators emphasizes China’s approach toward developing the sector within the country.
Baidu, Alibaba and ByteDance, which owns social media giant TikTok, were among the first companies in China to receive approvals last year. Among the latest batch of approvals are Xiaomi Corp, 4Pradigm and 01.AI. There were also approvals in November and December last year.
While a complete list of approved companies hasn’t been disclosed by the Chinese government, Securities Times has said more than 40 AI models have now been approved for public use.
China is attempting to keep up with the US as AI technology continues to evolve globally, with Chinese companies rushing to develop AI products since OpenAI‘s ChatGPT rose to prominence in 2022.
Back then, China had an estimated 130 LLMs, which accounted for 40% of the global total, while the US’ market share was 50%.
How much is the LLM market worth globally?
As companies around the world rush to grab a share of the generative AI marker by producing their own LLM tools, Bloomberg reported in June 2023 that it estimates the market could be worth $1.3 trillion within the next 10 years. In 2022, it estimated the market to be worth just $40 billion.
The report continued to project that “generative AI is poised to expand its impact from less than 1% of total IT hardware, software services, ad spending and gaming market spending to 10% by 2032.”
It goes on to name generative AI infrastructure as a service used for training LLMs as potentially the largest driver of this growth, accounting for $247 billion of global revenues by 2032.
Featured Image: Dall-E
