China wants to challenge the U.S. in AI — here's what Chinese giants are doing with the tech

Global attention around generative artificial intelligence has been focused on big U.S. companies like OpenAI, Alphabet's Google and Meta.

But some of China's giants, from Alibaba to Tencent, have launched their own AI models over the past 18 months, looking to capitalize on the hype around the technology.

China's ambitions to become a world leader in AI adds another layer to the country's technology battle with the U.S. China has been seen as playing catchup to the U.S. but the race is heating up.

Generative AI includes applications like OpenAI's ChatGPT, which has the ability to generate text, images and even video based on user prompts. These applications are powered by large AI models which are trained on huge amounts of data, such as Google's Gemini.

Chinese technology firms have had to tread carefully in releasing their technology as Beijing has strict requirements for AI models and their uses.

CNBC runs through the big Chinese AI models developed by the country's biggest tech firms.

Baidu, one of China's biggest internet companies, was among the first in the country to launch generative AI applications. Its model powers Ernie Bot, an AI chatbot designed to rival OpenAI's ChatGPT and which the Chinese company says has 300 million users.

Before the "Turbo" version of the model, Baidu said that its latest version — Ernie 4.0 — has capabilities on par with OpenAI's GPT-4. The foundational model can understand and reason, according to Baidu.

Like other companies, Baidu is selling the ability to use its AI model via its cloud computing division.

Alibaba launched its set of foundational models, Tongyi Qianwen, last year. Often shortened to Qwen, Alibaba has developed various versions that can carry out different tasks. For