China Approves More Than 40 AI Models For Public Use In The Last 6 Months

JAKARTA - The Chinese government has approved more than 40 artificial intelligence (AI) models for public use in the first six months since authorities began the approval process, as the country seeks to pursue the development of US artificial intelligence. This was reported by Chinese media.

Chinese regulators gave approval for a total of 14 large language models (LLM) for public use last week, as reported by the government-backed Chinese newspaper, the Securities Times. This is the fourth batch of approvals given by China, in which Xiaomi Corp, 4Paradigm, and 01.AI are among the recipients of approval.

Beijing began requiring technology companies to obtain approval from regulators to open their LLM to the public in August last year. This reflects China's approach to developing AI technology while trying to maintain it under its supervision.

In August 2023, Beijing approved the first batch of AI models after the approval process was adopted. Baidu, Alibaba, and ByteDance were among the first Chinese companies to receive approval.

Chinese regulators then gave two batches of approval in November and December before another batch got the green light this month. Although the government did not disclose the exact list of approved companies that could be publicly inspected, the Securities Times reported on Sunday, January 28, that more than 40 AI models had been approved.

Chinese companies have been rushing to develop AI products since chatbot ChatGPT from OpenAI stole the world's attention in 2022. By then, China had 130 NGOs, covering 40% of the total global, just slightly behind the United States portion of 50%, according to securities firm CLSA.

One of China's leading chatbots, similar to the ChatGPT, namely Baidu's Ernie Bot, has attracted more than 100 million users, according to the company's CTO in December.