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Artificial intelligence
Tech

Megvii makes deep learning AI framework open-source as China moves to reduce reliance on US platforms

  • Initially developed in 2014, MegEngine is part of Megvii’s proprietary AI platform, Brain++
  • China’s reliance on US-originated deep learning frameworks is seen as a significant gap in its AI ecosystem

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Megvii Technology says it is one of the few companies that has developed its own deep learning framework. Photo: Handout
Sarah DaiandMinghe Hu

Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Megvii Technology announced on Wednesday that it would make its deep learning framework open-source, as China steps up the development of home-grown AI and makes the technologies more accessible.

Initially developed in 2014, MegEngine is part of Megvii’s proprietary AI platform, Brain++, which can train computer vision at large scale and enable developers across the world to build AI solutions for industrial and commercial use, according to the Beijing-based company.

“If we liken the process of algorithms creation to cooking a meal, then data is the raw material and computing power the stove fire,” explained Tang Wenbin, Megvii’s co-founder and chief technology officer at a live-streamed launch event on Wednesday. “Those algorithms would still need a framework to carry them and MegEngine is the pot.”

China’s reliance on US-originated frameworks is seen as a significant gap in its AI ecosystem: despite an ambitious plan to become a global leader in AI by 2030, nearly all small- to mid-sized Chinese AI companies rely on open-source platforms from the US which offer a host of tools and libraries designed for machine learning and deep learning techniques that teach computers to learn by example.

“The latest tide of AI cannot live without deep learning technologies, whose development has everything to do with open-sourced infrastructures,” said Gao Wen, a Peking University professor who is also director-general of the country’s New Generation AI Technology Innovation and Strategic Alliance.

Established open-source platforms like TensorFlow and Pytorch – both from the US – democratise deep learning, allowing almost anyone to feed data into these models and start training their own AI systems without having to create their own from scratch.

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