China Revvs Up LLM Game As Tencent, iFlytek Slash ChatGPT-Like AI Model Prices

China’s leading internet company Tencent TCEHY and AI firm iFlytek have significantly reduced the prices of their large-language models (LLMs).

What Happened: Tencent’s cloud unit announced that the “lite” version of its LLM, “Hunyuan,” is now free, with prices for more advanced versions slashed by 50% to 88%. Hours earlier, iFlytek revealed that its “Spark” LLM is either free or up to five times cheaper than similar products from competitors, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the cloud units of Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Baidu also reduced prices of their LLMs. Last week, Bytedance made a similar move, intensifying the competition.

Tencent and iFlytek launched ChatGPT-like products in September, aiming to dominate China’s generative AI market. Both companies claimed their LLMs outperformed U.S.-based OpenAI’s ChatGPT in certain tasks.

Hefei-based iFlytek, known for its voice recognition technology, stated that Spark Lite is free for public use, while Spark Pro/Max costs only 0.21 yuan per 10,000 tokens. This is significantly cheaper than Baidu‘s Ernie 4.0 and Alibaba‘s Tongyi Qwen-Max.

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Why It Matters: The price cuts by Tencent and iFlytek come amid China’s broader push to develop its own AI technologies and reduce reliance on foreign suppliers. This move aligns with China’s recent advancements in producing high bandwidth memory (HBM) semiconductors, a crucial component in AI chipsets. Chinese chipmakers like CXMT and Wuhan Xinxin have made significant strides in this area, showcasing their progress to clients.

Furthermore, China has introduced a new AI model based on President Xi Jinping‘s political philosophy. This model, developed by the China Cyberspace Research Institute, is still in the internal testing phase. The core content of this large language model (LLM) comprises Xi Jinping’s philosophy and other cyberspace themes that align with the official government narrative.

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Photo by katjen via Shutterstock

This story was generated using Benzinga Neuro and edited by Pooja Rajkumari