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US-China Tech War: China's Zhipu AI Raises $340 Million to Fuel AI Advancements Amid Chip Restrictions

Oct 20, 2023 - techtimes.com
Chinese AI firm Zhipu AI has raised 2.5 billion yuan (about $340 million) in investment this year, as it seeks to compete with US AI giants like OpenAI and Anthropic. The funding, which was obtained from regional investors and is denominated in yuan rather than the usual USD, comes amid growing geopolitical tensions and chip restrictions imposed by the US. The Biden administration's recent restrictions on the sale of Nvidia AI hardware have affected China's ability to train broad language models, leading Chinese AI firms to stockpile semiconductor supplies.

Zhipu AI, established in 2019, has received investments from a range of Chinese internet giants including Alibaba, Tencent, and Ant Group, in a rare display of unity. The company has recently open-sourced ChatGLM-6B, a multilingual conversational AI model developed using six billion training parameters, and the GLM-130B open-sourced foundation model, which was trained on 130 billion parameters.

Key takeaways:

  • Zhipu AI, a Chinese company that creates foundation models, has received an investment of about $340 million this year, as it works on AI advancements amid US chip restrictions.
  • The funding, which deviates from the usual preference for USD funds, comes from regional investors and is made up of yuan-denominated money, a change attributed to growing geopolitical tensions and the resulting digital gap.
  • The company has received investments from a prestigious group of Chinese internet goliaths, including Alibaba and Tencent, in a surprising display of unity.
  • Zhipu AI has recently open-sourced ChatGLM-6B, a multilingual conversational AI model developed using six billion training parameters, and the GLM-130B open-sourced foundation model, which was trained on 130 billion parameters.
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