A CHINESE startup founded by computer scientist Kai-Fu Lee has become a unicorn in less than eight months on the strength of a new open-source artificial intelligence (AI) model that outstrips Silicon Valley’s best, on at least certain metrics.

The firm, 01.AI, has reached a valuation of more than US$1 billion after a funding round that included Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s cloud unit, Lee said.

Lee, chief executive officer of venture firm Sinovation Ventures, will also be CEO of the new startup. He began assembling the team for 01.AI in March and started operations in June.

The startup’s open-sourced, foundational large language model, Yi-34B, is now available to developers around the world in Chinese and English.

Large language models, or LLMs, are computer algorithms trained on large quantities of data to read, understand and produce human-like text, images and code.

On key metrics, Yi-34B outperforms leading open-source models already on the market, including Meta Platforms Inc.’s well-regarded Llama 2.

Hugging Face, which runs leaderboards for the best-performing LLMs in various categories, posted evaluations over the weekend ranking the Chinese model first for what’s known as pre-trained base LLMs.

“Llama 2 has been the gold standard and a big contribution to the open-source community,” Lee said. “We want to provide a superior alternative not just for China but for the global market.”

OpenAI set off a frenzy of interest in AI after it unveiled its ChatGPT chatbot last year. Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Meta have poured billions into research and development, seeking leadership in the emergent field of generative AI and beyond. Elon Musk just unveiled a chatbot called Grok.

In China, tech giants and entrepreneurs have also jumped into the field, with search leader Baidu Inc. showcasing a version of its Ernie LLM it claimed was on par with OpenAI’s technology. Alibaba has backed at least three ventures in the space, including 01.AI. (SD-Agencies)