TikTok owner ByteDance has commercially launched a batch of large language models (LLMs) – the technology behind ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) services – that costs less than those from industry rivals, a move that could spark a new price war in the world’s second-largest economy.
The Doubao LLM family, which shares the same name as the Doubao chatbot that ByteDance introduced last year, is made up of at least eight versions. These include the top-of-the-line Doubao Pro, which can handle an input of up to 128,000 tokens, as well as the entry-level Doubao Lite and other versions specifically focused on recognising audio or creating virtual characters, the company announced at an event on Wednesday in Beijing.
Tan Dai, president of ByteDance’s cloud computing services unit Volcano Engine, said at the event that use of the Doubao Pro LLM costs as low as 0.0008 yuan (0.011 US cents) per 1,000-token prompt. In AI, a token is a fundamental unit of data that is processed by algorithms, which makes 1,000 tokens equivalent to about 750 English words.
Use of the Doubao LLMs, which launched on Wednesday via Volcano Engine, costs 99.8 per cent less than ChatGPT creator OpenAI’s GPT-4 model, which is priced at 0.42 yuan per 1,000-token prompt, according to Tan.
ByteDance’s icon for its Doubao large language model family. Photo: ByteDance
Social media giant ByteDance’s aggressive pricing for its Doubao LLMs reflect the increased opportunity in mainland China’s AI market, where a growing number of companies – including start-ups, Big Tech firms and state-owned enterprises – are scrambling to adopt GenAI tools to help boost their productivity and efficiency.
LLMs, which are trained on a vast amount of data, are revolutionising GenAI applications such as chatbots, virtual assistants and advanced content-generating tools like Sora. GenAI are algorithms used to create new content, including audio, code, images, text, simulations and videos.
Sample code for an artificial intelligence large language model. Photo: Shutterstock
ByteDance had tested its Doubao LLM family, previously code-named Skylark, internally and with selected partners for about a year, according to Volcano Engine’s Tan.
Apart from that low-cost LLM initiative, ByteDance also announced on Wednesday other AI-related efforts, including an enterprise version of its Coze platform that enables users to customise chatbots.
The sharpened focus on AI shows ByteDance’s “all in” mentality to compete in this sector, a battle that the company believes it cannot afford to lose, the Post reported in February.
The logo of Alibaba Group Holding’s Tongyi Qianwen large language model on a smartphone screen. Photo: Shutterstock
The firm’s Doubao app has amassed more than 26 million monthly active users, Alex Zhu, vice-president of ByteDance’s product and strategy department, said on Wednesday.
ByteDance, however, still has a lot of catching up to do on the mainland’s LLM market segment.
More than 2.2 million corporate users also have access to Qwen-powered AI services through DingTalk, Alibaba’s office collaboration platform, the company said.
In the broader global market, the bar for AI models remains high. OpenAI said on Monday it would release a new LLM called GPT-4o that is capable of realistic voice conversation and able to interact across texts and images, its latest move to stay ahead in a race to dominate AI technology.
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