By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-12-12 10:08:27 | Updated at 2024-12-12 12:49:11
2 hours ago
China has approved 64 generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) services for release in Beijing’s latest regulatory approvals, making it the smallest of the three batches to be given the go-ahead this year, in a fresh sign that the domestic AI market is becoming saturated.
The November approvals have gone to a diverse group of products and applications, spanning a variety of industries, according to a document published by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the national internet watchdog. Licences have been granted to GenAI models for legal services, medical research, educational tech and online gaming, among other use cases.
China’s market for GenAI – algorithms that create new content in the form of text, images, audio and video – has been rife with competition in the two years since OpenAI launched ChatGPT, as the country’s Big Tech firms and start-ups rushed into the market with their own AI models and services.
To be released to the Chinese public, a GenAI model must receive the green light from Beijing under the country’s licensing system. All 252 approved GenAI services so far are from domestic companies.
Among the tech giants to receive approval in this new batch are Tencent Holdings, for an AI-enhanced search system, and NetEase, for a sales and marketing system under its e-commerce unit.
The regulator also approved two video-creation tools from Beijing-based Kuaishou Technology, rival to ByteDance’s short-video platform Douyin, and Damo Academy, a research institution under e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
