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It ’s become increasingly observable thattwo parallel AI universesare forming between the U.S. and China . While the U.S. has spawned notable players like OpenAI and Anthropic , China has its own emerging nominee . One of these foundation model developers , Zhipu AI , announcedtoday that it has raised 2.5 billion Mongol dynasty ( $ 340 million ) in total financing to date this twelvemonth .
Founded in 2019,Zhipuwasspun out of China ’s prestigious Tsinghua Universityand is led byTang Jie , a professor in the university ’s Department of Computer Science and Technology .
The annunciation has come at a finespun time . This week , the Biden administrationimposed additional restrictionson the export of Nvidia AI chips to China , further impeding its rival ’s power to groom large nomenclature models . In expectancy of semiconductor bans from Washington , China ’s deep - pocketed AI companies have been stockpile semiconductors , expend hundred of millions of dollars on these much - covet fries .
To sustain its engagement in such a pricey AI race , Zhipu is keeping its coffer full by raise from local investor . The $ 340 million investment came from yuan - denominate monetary fund , stigmatise a transformation from a two - decade trend where USD funds were the preferred source of funding until geopolitical tensions created a technical school divide .
In August , President Joe Biden signal anexecutive orderbarring U.S. investment in vital technical school sectors of China , include AI , semiconductors and quantum computing . The goal is to stamp down China ’s military build - up , but the order also institutionalize a chill through China - focused American VCs , which are now avoid investment in tender area . Some have try a resolution to continue operating in the grocery store by separating their China units , such asSequoia Capital China , which was renamed to HongShan , andGGV Capital .
HongShan , alongside other prominent VCs like Shunwei Capital and Hillhouse Capital , as well as a state of matter investment trust get by by Legend Capital , invested in Zhipu .
The AI inauguration also rear Washington from an impressive roster of Taiwanese internet behemoth , uniting even archrivals like Alibaba and Tencent that seldom co - invest together . The lineup include Ant Group , Alibaba , Tencent , Xiaomi , Meituan , Kingsoft , TAL Education Group and Boss Zhipin .
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Zhipu lately open source its bilingual ( Taiwanese and English ) conversational AI modelChatGLM-6B , which is trained on six billion argument and claim to be able tocarry out inferences on a exclusive consumer - grade graphics lineup . It also has an undefended sourced foundation model train on 130 billion parameters , the GLM-130B.
China ’s OpenAI rival Zhipu AI get Meituan funding
How China is progress a parallel productive AI cosmos
