Alibaba tests ChatGPT rival as Chinese tech giants like Baidu race to build country’s best AI chatbot

  • An Alibaba spokeswoman has confirmed that the company’s research institute Damo Academy is conducting an internal testing of an AI chatbot
  • Damo launched a natural language processing model with 27 billion parameters in 2021, after OpenAI released GPT-3 with 175 billion parameters in 2020

Coco Fengin Beijing
The Alibaba office in Beijing. Photo: Bloomberg

Alibaba Group Holding said it is testing a ChatGPT-like service that takes advantage of its years of research in large language models, joining web search giant Baidu in a rush to create China’s answer to San Francisco-based OpenAI’s chatbot, which has set off a frenzy among investors and the general public.

A spokeswoman at Alibaba, owner of the South China Morning Post, confirmed on Thursday that the company’s research institute Damo Academy is conducting an internal testing, but did not provide a timetable for service launch.

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