Chinese language search large Baidu mentioned on Tuesday that ERNIE Bot, its competitor to ChatGPT, has achieved a 10-fold enchancment in inference effectivity only one month after its launch, whereas decreasing the price of giant language mannequin (LLM) inference to one-tenth of its authentic stage. Inference, which refers back to the technique of operating LLMs, principally takes place on graphics processors or GPUs.
Why it issues: Baidu isn’t alone in trying to provide lower-cost AI merchandise. Different tech majors in China akin to Tencent and Alibaba have introduced lately that they’re introducing lower-priced AI merchandise attributable to effectivity good points within the discipline.
Particulars: This improvement permits extra small and medium firms to entry giant mannequin applied sciences at diminished costs by means of tech corporations’ cloud providers. In the meantime, the effectivity good points permit the tech giants to seize cloud market share at a low price.
Baidu plans to “considerably decrease” the edge for enterprises deploying giant fashions by means of three providers, the corporate mentioned in a Wednesday assertion despatched to TechNode. These providers embrace utilizing the inference functionality of ERNIE Bot immediately, coaching industry-specific giant fashions through high-quality and correct enterprise information, or unveiling fashions in Baidu’s cloud service for extra steady and environment friendly operation.
E-commerce large Alibaba can be trying to increase income from its newly unveiled mannequin Tongyi Qianwen, with the agency asserting on Wednesday that it’ll launch an AI co-development program for patrons protecting the transportation, petrochemical, and telecommunications industries.
On the identical day, Alibaba’s cloud unit additionally introduced its largest worth lower amid the enlargement of China’s cloud computing market. The costs of its core merchandise are set to be diminished by 15% to 50%.
Tencent, one other tech heavyweight within the nation, has rolled out a digital human-production platform that it says can cut back manufacturing prices from thousands and thousands to 1000’s of yuan inside 24 hours.
Context: Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT gained worldwide reputation, quite a few Chinese language tech firms have declared an intention to enter the sector of generative AI based mostly on giant fashions. Nevertheless, coaching such fashions will be fairly costly. Based on a report by state-owned monetary providers firm Guosheng Securities, coaching GPT-3 prices about $1.4 million per session, whereas over $2 million is required when coaching bigger LLMs.
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