iFlytek (科大讯飞, 002230.SZ), one of China’s AI powerhouses, will release an update to its large language model (LLM) on August 15.
The Hefei-headquartered AI titan launched a LLM called xinghuo renzhi in May this year, followed by an upgraded V1.5 version in June.
iFlytek issued the statement in response to recent investor enquiries on a stock interaction platform.
The V2.0 version of xinghuo renzhi will go live at 2pm (GMT+8) on August 15, the company said.
It hasn’t disclosed anything specific about the V2.0 edition of xinghuo renzhi, but the new model is expected to be more accurate, responsive and compact than its predecessor.
Following the AI frenzy sparked by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a host of Chinese tech firms big and small have been literally falling over each other to release their own LLMs.
Market observers believe that iFlytek’s bid to develop its LLM is partly inspired by the company’s sliding financial performance.
According to its financial statement for the first half of this year, the company reported gross profit of 73.57 million yuan (US$10.16 million) in H1, tumbling 73.54% year on year, on revenue of 7.84 billion yuan during the same period, down 2.26% from a year earlier.
In the meantime, however, the number of users on its open-source developer platform jumped 45% over the previous year to 4.97 million as of June 30.
The xinghuo renzhi LLM has been an apparent boost as registered users on its platform increased by 850,000 two months after it had made its debut.
