ChatRhino, called Yanxi in Chinese, was described at the summit as an AI model that combines 70 per cent general data with 30 per cent native intelligent supply chain data. It purportedly offers targeted solutions across a range of industries, from retail and logistics to finance and healthcare.
LLMs are deep-learning AI algorithms that can recognise, summarise, translate, predict and generate content using very large data sets.
“JD’s large model evolution aligns with our relentless pursuit of technology,” Xu said at the tech summit. She indicated that this move “signifies our dedication to leveraging technology to benefit industries and society as a whole”.
The Beijing-based company’s foray into AI models reflects the Chinese tech industry’s strong interest to close the gap with the West in building ChatGPT-like services, as the government sets out to implement a national standard for LLMs in line with efforts to regulate AI.After Microsoft Corp-backed start-up OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November, Chinese Big Tech firms have rushed to develop challengers, with Beijing pinning its hopes on AI development to drive industrial productivity and fuel post-pandemic growth in the world’s second-largest economy.While JD.com’s LLM training started in 2021, company executives revealed at the summit on Thursday that the firm decided against an early release to move beyond the technology’s capability to handle random chats or draw images upon request.
“We needed to use the large [language] model to create industry value … rather than chit-chat or draw things”, said Cao Peng, chairman of JD.com’s technology committee and president of JD Cloud.
In a pre-recorded video presented at the summit, a JD.com employee showed how a ChatRhino automated tool, AI Growth Marketing, was used by the company to turn a marketing idea into a full-fledged campaign with its own smartphone-based webpage in just minutes.
Without AI’s help, the same process would have taken up to two weeks to complete and require close collaboration between marketers, designers and software coders, according to the JD.com employee.
Beijing now home to half of AI models developed in China
JD.com on Thursday also launched Jingyi Qianxun, translated as “asking doctors thousands of times” in Chinese, which is a specific ChatRhino-based LLM for the company’s JD Health unit.
It uses rapid migration and learning of various medical and health scenarios to automatically deploy products and solution, which JD.com expected to serve as a foundation for telemedicine services.
Beijing – where many AI start-ups as well Big Tech firms such as JD.com, Baidu and TikTok owner ByteDance operate – is currently home to half of China-developed LLMs. The Chinese capital accounted for 40 of around 80 LLMs that have already been launched, according to Jiang Guangzhi, director at Beijing’s Bureau of Economy and Information Technology.
