In a striking development within the global artificial intelligence (AI) landscape, Alibaba’s cloud division is integrating Meta Platforms’ open-source AI model, Llama 2, into its services. This breakthrough represents a remarkable stride in international AI technology utilization, despite ongoing U.S. attempts to regulate Chinese access to American AI advancements.
Chinese businesses and developers are set to reap the benefits of this move, being granted access to the capabilities of Meta’s model. This development comes as somewhat unexpected, considering Alibaba’s concurrent focus on cultivating its indigenous AI model, Tongyi Qianwen.
“Alibaba Cloud has launched the first training and deployment solution for the entire Llama 2 series in China, inviting all developers to create customized large models on Alibaba Cloud,” a statement on the company’s WeChat account read, as reported by Reuters.
Earlier this month, Meta unveiled its new AI language model, Llama 2, as free open-source software. This designation allows it to be freely used, shared, and modified. In a similar vein, Microsoft has also pledged to make Llama 2 accessible to its cloud customers via its Azure platform.
While Microsoft is Meta’s chosen partner for the AI model, Meta emphasized that the software is open to all for research and commercial applications.
Following this news, Meta’s stocks rose by 1.8% in premarket trading on Wednesday, while Alibaba’s American depositary receipts witnessed a 0.9% surge.
This unfolding story may prompt a significant shift in the AI race and the U.S.-China tech relations. However, the implications of these developments remain to be seen.
This news is based on a barrons.com article.
