Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence division of Alibaba Group, has revealed its answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, titled Tongyi Qianwen in English.

This new artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) is set to be integrated across its various businesses to enhance user experiences in the near future. Primarily, Alibaba’s enterprise customers and developers will gain access to the model, allowing them to create customized AI features cost-effectively.

The company also announced reduced costs for several of its cloud products, including Elastic Compute Service (ECS) and Object Storage Service (OSS). With its updated offerings, Alibaba Cloud aims to make computing more accessible and affordable for businesses looking to capitalize on emerging opportunities in China’s new AI era.

“We are at a technological watershed moment driven by generative AI and cloud computing, and businesses across all sectors have started to embrace intelligence transformation to stay ahead of the game,” stated Daniel Zhang, the Chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group and CEO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.

He added that “As a leading global computing service provider, Alibaba Cloud is committed to making computing and AI services more accessible and inclusive for enterprises and developers, enabling them to uncover more insights, explore new business models for growth, and create more cutting-edge products and services for society.”

The AI model will reportedly support both Chinese and English languages and will be integrated into all business applications across Alibaba’s ecosystem soon, enhancing user experiences in various fields like enterprise communication, intelligent voice assistance, e-commerce, search, navigation, and entertainment.

To begin with, the model will be deployed to Alibaba’s digital collaboration workplace and application development platform DingTalk, with deployments planned for its IoT-enabled smart home appliances provider, Tmall Genie.

Direct applications of the AI with DingTalk include more efficient workplace communications, summarized meeting notes, conversations converted to text, email generations, assistance with business proposal drafts, and more. Alibaba states that users can instantly create a mini-application on Tongyi Qianwen-powered DingTalk by photographing a draft idea written on paper.

Additionally, its AI-powered Tmall Genie will be able to engage in more dynamic and vivid conversations with users in China. Examples of this include the capabilities to develop and tell stories to children, provide healthy diet recipes, offer travel tips, and recommend background music for workouts.

In the near future, Alibaba Cloud plans to add multimodal capabilities, including image understanding and text-to-image, to the Tongyi Qianwen model to provide users with more compelling features.

Outside of enterprise and business applications, the group is also exploring educational use cases, with plans to integrate AI into its existing “Cloud for Youth” program — a collaborative effort with UNESCO to bring computing resources to students in China’s rural areas.

First unveiled in 2021, Alibaba’s non-profit Cloud for Youth program helps to narrow the digital gap in China by providing cloud computers to schools in underdeveloped areas. “The goal is to help youths strengthen their technical foundation in digital capabilities and cultivate local digital talents,” shared the group.

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