Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) companies are quickly seeking to attract users of OpenAI's technology. This comes after reports that the U.S. firm intends to restrict access in China and other countries to its application programming interface (API), a platform that enables developers to integrate its AI models into their products. OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, plans to block access to its technology used for building AI products for entities in China and some other countries, as reported by the Chinese state-owned newspaper Securities Times on Tuesday.
Why is OpenAI is restricting Chinese users?
While ChatGPT is not available in mainland China, many Chinese startups have been able to utilise OpenAI's API platform to develop their own applications, as per the Securities Times.
"We are taking additional steps to block API traffic from regions where we do not support access to OpenAI's services," an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters.
Chinese users of the platform have been receiving emails since late Monday, cautioning them that they are in a "region that OpenAI does not currently support," and that additional measures to block API traffic from unsupported regions will commence from July 9.
What next for China?
Baidu, China's leading AI developer, announced that it will launch an "inclusive program" to offer new users free migration to its Ernie platform in response to the growing demand. Additionally, Baidu will provide extra Ernie 3.5 flagship model tokens to match the scale of usage by OpenAI users. Tokens represent the units of text processed by AI models, as mentioned in a statement from Baidu's cloud unit.
Alibaba Cloud has also stepped in by offering free tokens and migration services for OpenAI API users through its AI platform. The company's Qwen-plus model comes at a substantially lower price than GPT-4.
Zhipu AI, another major player in China's AI sector, has announced a "Special Migration Program" for OpenAI API users.
According to a statement seen by Reuters, Zhipu AI's GLM model competes favourably against OpenAI's product ecosystem. The company assures developers that its entirely self-developed technology ensures security and controllability.
Several Chinese companies have recently introduced chatbots powered by their proprietary AI models over the past year.
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Inputs from Reuters
