Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) companies are quickly moving to attract users of OpenAI technology. It was previously reported that the American company plans to restrict access to its application programming interface (API) in China and other countries. This platform allows developers of other products to integrate their AI models.
The maker of ChatGPT, OpenAI, plans to block entities in China and some other countries from using its technology to develop AI products, according to a report by China's state-owned newspaper Securities Times on Tuesday.
Although ChatGPT is not available in mainland China, many Chinese startups have been able to access OpenAI's API platform and use it to build their own applications, noted the Securities Times.
An OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters: "We are taking additional steps to block API traffic from regions where we do not support access."
Since Monday evening, API platform users in China have received emails warning them that their region is "currently not supported by OpenAI," and that additional measures will be taken to block API traffic from unsupported regions starting July 9.
In response, Chinese leading AI developer Baidu said it will launch an "inclusive plan" to provide new users with free migration services to its Ernie platform.
Baidu's cloud division stated in a separate announcement that for OpenAI users, it will offer additional Ernie 3.5 flagship model tokens, matching the scale of their OpenAI usage. Tokens are units of text processed by AI models.
