Google’s ChatGPT rival Bard is still missing in Hong Kong after opening up to 180 countries and territories

Google ended most limitations on the use of its generative AI bot Bard on Wednesday, but Hong Kong did not make the cut of supported territories
Bard joins ChatGPT in locking out access in the city, although Google said more supported territories are ‘coming soon’

Artificial intelligence

Xinmei Shen

Published: 5:00pm, 11 May, 2023

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Google has opened its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Bard to “over 180 countries and territories around the world”, but Hong Kong is not among them.

Google said on Wednesday that it has removed the wait list for Bard, which was launched in March this year with limited access for users in the US and the UK. The tech giant has now nixed the wait list in most parts of the world, it announced at its I/O developer conference, with plans to integrate it into search after Microsoft made a similar move with ChatGPT.

Google did not publish a complete list of territories where Bard is available, but like ChatGPT, it cannot currently be used in Hong Kong. Attempts to access the service on Thursday were met with a message saying that “Bard isn’t currently supported in your country. Stay tuned!”

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In a blog post about the expanded service on Wednesday, Google said more countries and territories are “coming soon”.

When asked about Bard’s absence in Hong Kong, Google did not address its plans for specific markets. “Bard is in its early days – and given how new the technology is, we want to roll it out thoughtfully and responsibly,” a Google spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.

Microsoft-backed OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, does not make its services available in Hong Kong, either. The company lists 163 markets where it is available. Many of the places not listed are either sanctioned or exhibit tight internet controls, including Russia, Iran, North Korea and China.

However, both Bard and ChatGPT can be accessed through the use of virtual private networks (VPNs), although OpenAI has taken extra steps such as blocking some VPN connections and requiring a phone number to create an account.

As in mainland China, some people in Hong Kong have been using third-party services with access to OpenAI’s application programming interface (API). As a result, generative AI tools have proven popular in the city.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks on stage during the Google I/O keynote session at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California, on May 10, 2023. Photo: TNS

Still, the lack of official support for the hottest new AI products appears to undercut the city’s efforts to position itself as a super connector and international financial centre. While Google is blocked by the Great Firewall in mainland China, the company’s other services from search to email are widely used in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong operates as a separate customs territory from the mainland under the “one country, two systems” arrangement, but in 2020, then-president Donald Trump revoked the city’s preferential trade status with the US.

In recent years, Google has been butting heads with local authorities. After Beijing imposed a national security law on the city, Google stopped directly responding to data requests from Hong Kong police, instead directing them to go through “diplomatic procedures”.

Last year, Google also came under fire from local authorities for refusing to change its “organic” search results that put “Glory to Hong Kong”, a song associated with the 2019 protests, as the top result for Hong Kong’s “national anthem”. The song has been repeatedly played mistakenly at sporting events instead of the Chinese anthem “March of the Volunteers”.

According to Google’s latest transparency report covering the second half of 2022, the Hong Kong government requested that the company remove 183 items for the period, mostly from YouTube. Google only complied with about half of the requests.

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As Google looks to expand the use of its AI bot, it is also adding new language support. Bard can now be used in both Japanese and Korean, in addition to English, and will support more than 40 languages soon, the company said.

Google landed on those two languages as the first for expanded support by “truly listening to user feedback” about “the areas that people are most excited to engage” in, Bard product lead Jack Krawczyk said during an online media briefing last week.

By comparison, ChatGPT can already be used in dozens of languages, including Chinese, although the sophistication of its answers can vary depending on the language used.

Google also introduced a slew of new AI features across different products on Wednesday, including adding new capabilities to Google Cloud and Workspace.

Bard initially got off to a rocky start in February when Google debuted it with a limited beta. Shares of Google parent Alphabet tumbled after an ad showed Bard responding to a question with an incorrect answer, amid fears that it was losing ground to Microsoft.

The latest updates now appear to be generating some optimism for Bard’s future, with Alphabet gaining 4.4 per cent on Wednesday.