The AI Price War: A New Era of Accessibility
The simmering price war among China’s biggest artificial intelligence-model builders is set to greatly accelerate the launch of more advanced AI language models in the country, closing the gap with U.S. counterparts. This development is expected to have a profound impact on the industry, making AI language models more accessible and affordable for individuals and businesses alike.
AI models are becoming more affordable and accessible
According to top executives from leading Chinese AI startups, the price war will drive the development of the country’s LLM sector by allowing more people to see them as essential “infrastructure”. Zhang Peng, CEO of Zhipu AI, believes that when LLMs become very cheap and available, they will become akin to infrastructure, just like water and electricity. Under such circumstances, LLM companies will also have greater room for development.
“When LLMs can become very cheap and available at any time for people to use, and without worrying about investment output, they will become akin to infrastructure, just like water and electricity. Under such circumstances, LLM companies will also have greater room for development.” - Zhang Peng, CEO of Zhipu AI
Wang Xiaochuan, CEO of AI firm Baichuan Intelligence, also believes that the price war will drive more companies and individuals to truly use large models. He notes that previously, many Chinese companies trained LLMs out of fear of falling behind, without realizing that they were in fact the users of the products themselves. With a price war, many of these companies began to realize that they should return to becoming users of large models and make products that are both price- and people-friendly.
AI infrastructure is becoming more widespread
Amid this price war, Alibaba’s cloud unit announced price cuts of up to 97 percent on a range of its Tongyi Qwen LLMs. This move is seen as a significant step towards making AI language models more accessible and affordable. Li Dahai, CEO of ModelBest, believes that although the current price war has some marketing elements, at the end of the day, prices of large models in the future will be lower than they are now.
“This is the healthy way for large model companies to survive and it will also enable AI large models to be truly applied in thousands of industries.” - Li Dahai, CEO of ModelBest
Yang Zhilin, founder and CEO of Moonshot AI, an emerging LLM company, believes that over the long term, the competition of large models will eventually return to overall profitability. He notes that at present, the proportion of AI in the workflow is still very low, perhaps 1 percent, and people do much more than AI does. But when the work undertaken by AI large models in the workflow exceeds that of humans, a price war can be avoided on the business side.
AI workflow is becoming more efficient
In conclusion, the AI price war is set to revolutionize the industry, making AI language models more accessible and affordable for individuals and businesses alike. As the competition heats up, we can expect to see more advanced AI language models being launched, closing the gap with U.S. counterparts. The future of AI is bright, and it’s exciting to think about the possibilities that this new era of accessibility will bring.
