Zhipu AI, considered one of China’s most promising challengers to OpenAI, has acquired funding from the nation’s meals supply big Meituan, which has a market cap of round $100 billion on the time of writing.
An affiliate of Zhipu AI not too long ago added a Meituan subsidiary as its shareholder, which now owns a ten% stake within the agency, native media reported citing enterprise submitting data. The startup hasn’t disclosed its precise funding thus far, solely saying it raised “tons of of million yuan” ($1 = 7.23 yuan) from a Sequence B spherical final September. Its traders embody Qiming Enterprise Companions, Legend Capital and Tsinghua Holdings.
A large number of Chinese language corporations are working to develop massive language fashions (LLMs) that might doubtlessly problem their Western equivalents. One such firm, Zhipu AI, hails from the educational realm, having spun out of the country’s prestigious Tsinghua University. Based in 2019, the startup is led by Tang Jie, a professor within the college’s Division of Pc Science and Know-how.
Zhipu not too long ago open sourced its bilingual (Chinese language and English) conversational AI mannequin ChatGLM-6B, which is educated on six billion parameters and claims to have the ability to carry out inferences on a single consumer-grade graphics card, considerably reducing the price of operating an LLM. It additionally beforehand open sourced a extra sturdy, general-purpose variant, the GLM-130B educated on 130 billion parameters. Its user-facing chatbot app ChatGLM is at the moment in a close beta phase, first focused at educational and business gamers.
Meituan’s funding got here at a curious time. Simply three weeks in the past, the Chinese language web big introduced it will be buying Mild Years Past, one other outstanding LLM participant in China, for a hefty $234 million, regardless of the startup’s inception solely 4 months prior. The change in possession got here after Mild Years Past’s founder, Wang Huiwen, who’s additionally the billionaire co-founder of Meituan, introduced his resignation from all company roles on the meals supply big as a result of well being causes.
These investments are anticipated to present Meituan’s AI capabilities a giant expertise increase. In flip, the AI companies stand to achieve by doubtlessly tapping Meituan’s huge attain of 450 million users ordering meals, shopping for groceries or reserving resorts with the on-demand platform.