Today, the Chinese tech titan Alibaba has announced the launching of AI text-to-image generator Tongyi Wanxiang, which seeks to take on popular US competitors Dall-E 2 and Midjourney. They are also integrating a newly certified committee for AI tech standards in China.
Like this, the company looks to secure a leading position in the Chinese AI race, which is not without its challenges as the regional field is more strongly regulated.
This Friday, during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) 2023 in Shanghai, Alibaba Cloud (the subsidiary in charge of its AI products) announced its new AI image generator, Tongyi Wanxiang.
With a name that roughly translates into “truth from tens of thousands of pictures,” this tool is similar to the several that are taking over the Internet by storm this year: a generative AI model, trained with large amounts of existing pictures, that is capable of synthesizing images based on a user-input text prompt. This new tool is available in beta and for enterprises only.
Just like they went for ChatGPT’s market with their own chatbot Tongyi Qianwen launched back in April, Alibaba is aiming at establishing its product as a competitor to OpenAI’s Dall-E 2, as well as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion (the most popular US-developed AI image generating apps) as well as consolidating a leading spot in the Chinese AI industry.
During the same tech conference in Shangai, the Chinese National Standards Committee disclosed the genesis of a group focused on standardizing Artificial Intelligence.
Officially at this event, the new Large Scale Model Committee includes Alibaba and other major Chinese tech companies such as Huawei and Baidu among its members. Its goals will be to define and support new standards for ethical AI tech development and further integration of AI models in the regional market.
This is very relevant as globally, companies and regulators are pursuing the same purposes, but China has so far established stronger regulations for AI technology, including laws that police “deepfakes” and limit the kind of content that text generators can produce.
It’s interesting to see how the Chinese AI landscape defines in contrast with the rest of the world.
THE AUTHOR
Ivanna Attie
I am an experienced author with expertise in digital communication, stock media, design, and creative tools. I have closely followed and reported on AI developments in this field since its early days. I have gained valuable industry insight through my work with leading digital media professionals since 2014.
AI Secrets is a platform for tech decision-makers to learn about AI technology. Our team includes experts such as Amos Struck (20+ yrs ICT, Stock Photo, AI), Ivanna Attie (expert in digital comms, design, stock media), and more who share their views on AI.
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