The Beijing startup’s open-sourced, foundational large language model, Yi-34B, is now available to developers across the world in Chinese and English
A Chinese startup founded by computer scientist Lee Kai-Fu has become a unicorn in less than eight months on the strength of a new open-source AI model that outperforms Silicon Valley’s best, on at least certain metrics.
The company, 01.AI, has achieved a valuation of more than $1 billion after a funding round that included Alibaba Group Holding’s cloud unit, Lee said. The CEO of venture firm Sinovation Ventures will also be the CEO of the new startup. He started assembling the team for 01.AI in March and started operations in June.
The Beijing startup’s open-sourced, foundational large language model, Yi-34B, is now available to developers across the world in Chinese and English. Large language models (LLMs) are computer algorithms trained on large quantities of data to read, understand and produce human-like text, images and code.
On key metrics, Yi-34B outperforms leading open-source models already on the market, including Meta Platform’s Llama 2. Hugging Face, which runs leaderboards for the best-performing LLMs in different categories, posted evaluations over the weekend ranking the Chinese model first for what is known as pre-trained base LLMs.
Llama 2 has been the gold standard and a big contribution to the open-source community, Lee added. We want to provide a superior alternative not just for China but for the international market.
US-based OpenAI set off a frenzy of interest in artificial intelligence after it revealed its ChatGPT chatbot in 2022. Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta have invested billions into research and development, seeking leadership in the emergent field of generative artificial intelligence and beyond. Elon Musk just unveiled a chatbot called Grok.
In China, tech giants and entrepreneurs have also entered the field, with search leader Baidu showcasing a version of its Ernie LLM it claimed was on par with OpenAI’s technology. Alibaba has backed at least three ventures in the space, including 01.AI. The two countries’ AI firms largely do not compete with each other because American technologies are not available in China.