From South China Morning Post:

Chinese internet security firm 360 Security Technology has entered China’s race to launch a large language model called Sora. This has prompted state-owned enterprises in Beijing to lead in AI. Xie Saining, a professor at NYU, emphasized the importance of talent and data. Access to Sora is currently limited. OpenAI and Google do not directly offer services in China. Local tech giants like Baidu and Tencent have announced their own large language models.

Chinese tech entrepreneurs are in awe and fear of OpenAI’s Sora video tool. Few can match Sora’s capabilities due to lack of the novel DiT architecture. ByteDance’s Boximator tool is still in its early stages. Sinodata plans to apply for a Sora API subscription. London-based Stability AI released a similar text-to-image model using DiT.

Chinese AI experts predict that China will soon produce its own Sora-like models. Wang Shuyi, a professor at TJNU, believes Chinese tech firms have the know-how and hardware to create similar products in the next six months. Experts speculate that data is a critical factor for Sora’s success, driven by around 3 billion parameters. A benchmark tool, VBench, compared Sora with other video generation models.

China’s top tech firms like Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent are expected to launch similar AI services. However, China faces challenges in access to capital, hardware, data, and talent, hindering its tech development when compared to the US. Restrictions on semiconductor exports from the US may further impact China’s AI chip industry growth. Washington has tightened restrictions on Chinese access to GPUs designed by Nvidia.



Read more: OpenAI’s Sora pours ‘cold water’ on China’s AI dreams, as text-to-video advancements prompt more soul-searching