Unique Research · Company / funding · April 17, 2023
On Apr 10, 2023, Baichuan Intelligence (百川智能) raised $50M equity from Sogou founder Wang Xiaochuan and industry friends. Co-founded with ex-Sogou COO Ru Liyun — China OpenAI-class foundation models + disruptive apps. Team: dozens from Sogou/Baidu/Huawei/MSFT/ByteDance/Tencent + startups; Tsinghua faculty/academicians supporting AGI science; ~50 elite by end-Apr; year-end China LLM target.
Focus: best-in-China LM base + search/multimodal/edu/healthcare enhancements for affordable world knowledge. Wang: 131 days since ChatGPT feel like another era; tech idealists + “bring capital to join” talent flocking. CAE academician Zheng Weimin (THU HPC): ChatGPT milestone; will support Wang’s China-fit product with parallel-computing expertise. Thesis: search’s future is Q&A; language boundary = world boundary (Wittgenstein) — once AI masters language it becomes a knowing, thinking, expressing, learning agent.
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