Hong Kong, Sep 11 (IANS) Chinese technology giant Ant Group has unveiled its own, industry-first large language model (LLM), that has outperformed mainstream AI models, along with a new Web3 brand targeting global markets, the media reported on Monday.

The Hangzhou-based company launches its self-developed “financial LLM”, along with two applications powered by the group’s AI model, reports the South China Morning Post.

“We have built computing power at a level of 10,000 GPUs. On this basis, Ant’s entire financial business has quickly switched to the LLM paradigm,” said Wang Xiaohang, Ant vice-president.

According to Wang, the new AI model has already outperformed “mainstream general-purpose LLMs” in terms of financial scenarios, according to Xiaohang.

Ant’s new financial LLM, an upgraded version of its consumer-facing financial assistant Zhixiaobao, will be used in the wealth management and insurance categories to help users in various scenarios including generating asset-management plans. 

The upgraded model will be available to users when it receives regulatory approval.

Baidu, Huawei Technologies, Tencent Holdings and Alibaba have already rolled out their LLMs for adoption in various industries.

Ant Chairman and CEO, Eric Jing Xiandong, was quoted as saying that the rise of LLMs will “reshape many commercial activities”.

“It’s like throwing a stone into a pool: you are seeing the first wave, such as replacing customer operations, marketing and sales,” Jing Xiandong.

Ant also launched a new Web3 brand called ZAN, targeting Hong Kong and other overseas markets.

The company's foray into the LLM market “underscores the increased competition among China’s Big Tech firms to close the gap with the West in using generative AI”.