China speeds up AI industry development, alongside growth of ChatGPT

Beijing will support Chinese tech giants to build ChatGPT-style applications and capabilities, while Shanghai may release related policies next week, Shanghai Daily learned on Tuesday.

Beijing announced that it will support leading enterprises in building large AI models that parallel ChatGPT.

The city will support key firms to invest in building an open source framework and accelerate the supply of basic data, the city economy and information technology bureau said on Monday.

It fits well with the announcement from Baidu to release its own chatbot. Baidu's Ernie Bot is a ChatGPT-like AI service which will complete its internal testing in March before being made public, the Beijing-based tech giant said recently.

Shanghai will hold the Global AI Developer Conference or (GAIDC), a city government-organized artificial intelligence event, on next Saturday and Sunday.

Some local chatbot-related policies and achievements will be released at the event, which will be held in the Lingang region, Shanghai Daily learned.

ChatGPT, a chatbot supported by Elon Musk-and heavily invested by Microsoft, is able to mimic human-like responses with AI-generated content. The new tech has quickly become popular in the world.

Shanghai has set AI, biomedicine and chip development as three "pillar" industries for the city's long-term development. It is a highland of AI industry nationwide, with one-third of AI talent gathering in the city.

Currently, ChatGPT is not officially available in the Chinese mainland, and a domestic phone number is not supported for required account verification.