Local AI developers in spotlight at GDC

SEVERAL Shanghai-developed AI models, intelligent hardware, an open-source foundation and an AI industry alliance consisting of Alibaba and SenseTime made their debuts at the Global Developer Conference in Shanghai on Saturday.

Some of the new large language models feature capabilities “comparable to OpenAI’s GPT 4” (used in ChatGPT), in vertical industries.

SenseTime released an intelligent all-in-one machine for the finance industry, based on its LLM model SenseNova. It supports accurate search and question and answer of huge-volume documents, covering both online search results and private domain documents for privacy and regulation compliance.

Xu Li, SenseTime’s chief executive, said that AI is a key factor of “new quality productive forces,” the growth engine to boost China’s economy development and digital transformation.

Another new AI model is Finstep. Backed by Shanghai United Media Group, Shanghai Daily’s parent company, it focuses on financial information and analysis.

The debuts and releases, also covering the community, talented personnel and policy for AI development, represent Shanghai’s decision to boost AI or artificial intelligence ecosystems and develop the AI industry, one of three “pioneering industries” in the city’s long-term blue print.

Shanghai will strengthen core (AI) technology breakthroughs; promote AI chip research and application adaptation; boost open source and openness; promote AI models for finance, manufacturing, health care, education and other vertical areas to “accelerate cultivation of AI innovation and ecological development,” Chen Jie, vice mayor of Shanghai, told the opening ceremony of the GDC held on the West Bund, downtown Xuhui District.