A Chinese AI company that receives government subsidies has introduced the “Spark Model,” an AI system designed to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. iFlytek, the company behind the Spark Model, launched it at the “Spark Desk” tech event in Hefei and showcased its capabilities.
Although there is no scientific consensus on the possibility of general artificial intelligence (AGI), iFlytek’s founder and president, Liu Qingfeng, called the Spark Model the “dawn of general artificial intelligence.” Qingfeng compared the Spark Model to ChatGPT and stated that it would surpass it in the Chinese language by October 10 and reach the same level in English.
The technology behind the Spark Model is unknown, but Qingfeng described its capabilities as far superior to existing systems in China. Comparisons between ChatGPT and similar models can be difficult because OpenAI keeps its training details and other proprietary information confidential, and ChatGPT is banned in China, limiting its training in Chinese languages and culture.
If the Spark Model’s upgrades surpassed ChatGPT, it would be a significant achievement, particularly because iFlytek’s research team began working on the model only six months before its launch, whereas OpenAI started working on the precursor to its GPT products in 2015, with ChatGPT launched on November 30, 2022.
