In the first half-year since the initiation of China's governmental oversight on artificial intelligence (AI) development, more than 40 AI models have received approval for public use, as reported by Chinese media.
Last week, Chinese regulators granted approval for 14 large language models (LLM) to be used publicly, marking the fourth batch of approvals. Among the recipients are notable companies such as Xiaomi Corp, 4Paradigm, and 01.AI.
The regulatory process, introduced in August, mandates that tech companies obtain approval from authorities before making their LLMs available to the public. This reflects China's strategy of fostering AI technology development while maintaining regulatory oversight and control.
The initial batch of AI model approvals was granted in August, with major players like Baidu, Alibaba, and ByteDance among the first recipients. Subsequent batches were approved in November and December, with the latest approvals issued this month.
While the specific list of approved companies hasn't been disclosed publicly by the government, the Securities Times reported that over 40 AI models have been given the green light.
Chinese companies have been actively pursuing AI product development, particularly in response to the global impact of OpenAI's ChatGPT in 2022. At that time, China accounted for 130 LLMs, representing 40% of the global total and trailing only slightly behind the United States' 50% share, according to brokerage CLSA.
One notable AI chatbot, akin to ChatGPT, is Baidu's Ernie Bot, which claimed over 100 million users, as stated by the company's CTO in December.