China's craze over generative artificial intelligence has triggered a flurry of product announcements from startups and tech giants on an almost daily basis, but investors are warning a shakeout is imminent as cost and profit pressures grow.
The buzz in China, first ignited by the success of OpenAI's ChatGPT almost a year ago, has given rise to what a senior Tencent executive described this month as "war of a hundred models," as it and rivals from Baidu to Alibaba to Huawei promote their offerings.
China now has at least 130 large language models (LLMs), accounting for 40% of the global total and just behind the United States' 50% share, according to brokerage CLSA. Additionally, companies have also announced dozens of "industry-specific LLMs" that link to their core model.