The Chinese technology giant, Alibaba, has recently announced plans to release its own AI product called Tongyi Qianwen, which would rival the current leader, ChatGPT.
Alibaba is not the first to look into the idea of a ChatGPT rival, with Google, Microsoft, and more offering their own alternatives to varying results. And in fact, the Chinese tech giant revealed its initial plans to look into a ChatGPT rival earlier in the year before the buzz of the 4th generation had everyone talking. In fact, it might even be called the newest space race, with big companies all scrambling to get the best version first.
“We are at a technological watershed moment driven by generative AI and cloud computing,” Alibaba’s chairman and chief executive Daniel Zhang said as Tongyi Qianwen was launched.
The AI software is said to be integrated into the company’s messaging app, DingTalk initially. It will then be added to Tmall Genie, which is a similar concept to Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant smart speaker and is capable of working in English and Chinese.
Tongyi Qianwen roughly translates as “seeking an answer by asking a thousand questions”, which seems apt for a software built on offering prompts and producing answers.
