China Telecom, a state-owned provider, has developed two LLMs that have been totally skilled on domestically produced processors.
This breakthrough demonstrates China’s progress towards chip independence, significantly within the discipline of AI.
The corporate’s AI Institute introduced that its open-source mannequin, TeleChat2-115B, together with one other undisclosed mannequin, was skilled on tens of 1000’s of Chinese language chips. That is particularly vital given the US’s rising restrictions on China’s entry to cutting-edge chips, similar to Nvidia’s newest AI processors.
In keeping with the AI Institute, this achievement displays China’s full self-sufficiency in coaching its personal LLMs, which energy instruments like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Additionally they regard it as the start of a brand new chapter within the nation’s pursuit of AI know-how innovation and independence.
China Telecom revealed that the unnamed mannequin options one trillion parameters. In layman’s phrases, parameters are the variables that an AI mannequin utilises to be taught throughout coaching; the extra parameters the mannequin has, the smarter and extra highly effective it’s. TeleChat2-115B, the opposite mannequin, has over 100 billion parameters.
Chinese language firms are working onerous to remain aggressive in AI, particularly given Washington’s export restrictions. Whereas China Telecom didn’t specify precisely who supplied the chips, the South China Morning Submit reported that it has beforehand talked about Huawei’s Ascend chips as a part of its LLM improvement.
Huawei, which is below US sanctions, has these days begun testing a brand new AI processor with potential purchasers in China. Corporations are searching for alternate options to Nvidia’s high-end {hardware}, and Huawei seems to be stepping in to fill the hole.
In keeping with sources, Huawei has already provided samples of its Ascend 910C processor to main Chinese language server firms for testing. The chip can also be being made out there to Chinese language web firms, lots of which have lengthy relied on Nvidia’s know-how.
For native AI firms, Huawei’s Ascend chips and coaching options are rising as viable alternate options to Nvidia’s choices. Along with Huawei, China Telecom is providing processors from Cambricon, a Chinese language start-up, via its State Cloud service.
These collaborations are doubtless to assist China minimise its reliance on overseas chips similar to Nvidia’s GPUs, which have lengthy been the popular possibility for coaching AI fashions.
With US export rules limiting entry to superior Nvidia GPUs such because the A100 and H100, a number of Chinese language AI companies have resorted to black markets. Nevertheless, many decide to make use of lower-powered alternate options to make sure that they’ll proceed to get pleasure from Nvidia’s official assist and companies.
See additionally: US examines safety dangers posed by China Telecom and China Cell’s operations
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