After OpenAI is banned there, a new era for artificial intelligence in China

OpenAI, a leader in generative artificial intelligence, recently announced that it will block users in China from accessing its tools and services starting today, July 9.

Previously, developers in China could use OpenAI's tools via VPNs, despite the Chinese government's ban on the ChatGPT model. Now, with the US side blocking all of the company's services, Chinese developers are urgently looking for possible alternatives.

This complete ban on the AI ​​giant's tools has raised great concern within the Chinese tech community, and despite these concerns, OpenAI's decision has opened up new opportunities for Chinese startups in this field, such as SenseTime, Baidu, and Zhipu AI.

OpenAI Ban Boosts Competition in China

After OpenAI was banned in the country, SenseTime unveiled its new model, SenseNova 5.5, during the AI ​​conference in Shanghai, held between July 3 and 7, which it claims is equivalent to GPT-4.

The launch of this model aims to attract users by offering 50 million free tokens and free customer transfer facilities from OpenAI, and it has demonstrated advanced skills, such as recognizing and describing dolls, giving feedback on drawing images, as well as reading and summarizing texts instantly.

Baichuan has launched its own chatbot, Baichuan4, a model it claims is more powerful than OpenAI's GPT-4, and is "specifically designed for the healthcare sector," the company said without elaborating, according to Asia Nikkei.

China is home to more than 130 generative AI models, accounting for 40% of the global total, after the United States. While American companies such as OpenAI have been at the forefront of generative AI, Chinese companies have entered a competition that could affect their profit margins and innovation capabilities, especially after the decision to ban OpenAI, according to the technical website "Interesting Engineering".

A recent report from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) stated that China has become the leading country in generative AI patents, filing more than six times the number of patents filed by the United States.