China launches LLM based on Xi Jingping Thought

TechRadar · May 23

China’s top internet regulator has developed a large language model based on the political philosophy of Xi Jinping.

The model, which is evocative of Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book, is said to be “secure and reliable,” and “the professionalism and authority of the corpus ensure the professional quality of the generated content.”

This corpus is taken from the president's personal commentary and instructions on social, economic and political life known as the ‘Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’.

A direct line to Xi Jinping Thought

The LLM has been developed by the China Cyberspace Research Institute as a closed model trained on select approved materials to provide insight to those looking for Xi Jinping's personal insight into their problems, or to explain reports, and answer questions.

Dubbed the Great Firewall of China, the state restricts access to the internet, leading to a rise in VPNs for China, and to AI that does not comply with strict guidelines and government controls to ensure answers ideologically align with Beijing.

While not currently available for public testing, the announcement suggested that users could consult the LLM for “a report on the current state of artificial intelligence development” or “to know the difference between new productivity and traditional productivity.”

China is scrambling to harness the power of AI to boost its economy which has been rocked by a number of economic troubles. Training LLMs requires advanced processors, which the US recently banned companies from selling to China. Unfortunately, recent research has found that the chips are still making their way through the Great Chip Embargo of China.

According to the Cyberspace Administration of China, the LLM was “deployed exclusively on the servers of the China Cyberspace Research Institute, where all data is processed locally, ensuring a high level of security.”

Some LLMs are prone to throwing out hallucinations or misinformation, so it is understandable that Beijing would want answers based on the personal philosophy of the paramount leader of China to be accurate to current state teachings.

Via SCMP.