SenseTime (0020) will open the Cantonese version of its ChatGPT-like product SenseChat to Hong Kong users for free on July 1, aiming to dominate the local market ahead of the other artificial intelligence companies.
The public can access both the website and the mobile application of the Cantonese version for various functions, including analyzing documents, pictures, coding and voice conversations starting July.
The Hong Kong-headquartered AI company also priced the application programming interfaces – usually for business use – at HK$30 per million tokens, which the firm said is the cheapest in the market.
Though mainland tech giants such as Baidu (9888) and Alibaba (9988) have intensified the price wars for Chinese AI large language models, SenseTime Hong Kong managing director Lewis Fung said the falling prices will have a limited impact on its goal to swing to a net profit in two years.
Instead, Fung said SenseTime cares more about its contribution to Hong Kong, where the company was established in 2014 and listed in 2021. Currently, people in the city need to use a virtual private network to reach OpenAI’s ChatGPT, while most Chinese AI LLMs use Mandarin.
SenseTime also sees huge demand from enterprises. Fung added that the company has been in talks with various sectors including finance, medical, and construction as well as government departments for business cooperation, most of which prefer the customized LLM placed on their own computers or servers.
Though the Cantonese version still needs improvements, including how to make the voice sound more native and human and how to shorten the response time, Fung said the current levels of SenseChat in Cantonese have outperformed the US giant OpenAI’s ChatGPT. But he promised that the team would keep improving the LLM before the official launch.
In a video shown at the launch ceremony yesterday, SenseChat went one up on ChatGPT as it offered its take on the controversial marriage of a 76-year-old man surnamed Ho to a 46-year-old mainland wife that set social media ablaze in the city recently, while its American rival said that it hadn’t heard any news about the odd couple.
When asked about the possibility of building a local AI data center, Fung said SenseTime is also considering working with local partners or allocating some computing resources from the mainland to Hong Kong, as electricity and talent required for AI training are very expensive in the city.
Hong Kong United Times丨香港聯合時報丨HKUT 