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China’s AI competition deepens as SenseTime, Alibaba claim progress at AI show

  • The major developers of large language models are claiming significant performance improvements and greater adoption at China’s biggest annual AI conference

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SenseTime founder and CEO Xu Li introduces the company’s SenseNova 5.0 large model at an event on April 24, 2024. Photo: SenseTime
Ann Caoin ShanghaiandBen Jiangin Beijing
Chinese large language model (LLM) developers from SenseTime and Alibaba Group Holding have rushed to declare fresh progress in developing their artificial intelligence (AI) technology at the country’s largest annual industry conference, in sign of deepening competition in the country’s largely closed-off market.
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At the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, Chinese AI champion SenseTime on Friday released a series of updated versions of its SenseNova LLMs, including SenseNova 5.5, its latest foundational model, which the company claims has 30 per cent improved performance compared with the previous version released in April.

“I believe the key to success and differentiation in China’s road to AI is how to construct high-level thinking logic based on synthetic data in vertical industries,” SenseTime co-founder and CEO Xu Li said at the conference.

Xu claimed that SenseNova 5.5 has surpassed GPT-4o in five of eight key metrics, citing data from OpenCompass, a platform for benchmarking large models. At the same time, its stock price plunged 16 per cent in Hong Kong on Friday.

SenseTime is among a number of Chinese Big Tech companies that have sought to use WAIC as an opportunity to boast about progress made in developing LLMs amid heightened competition in the domestic market.

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Alibaba’s cloud computing unit, the developer of the Tongyi Qianwen LLMs, also touted new user growth. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

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