iFlytek builds anticipation for homegrown ChatGPT alternative

Domestic artificial intelligence pioneer iFlytek will soon launch its grand model of cognition to the public, the company's chairman said on Wednesday.

Liu Qingfeng, also iFlytek founder, said Spark Desk, developed based on its open cloud platform, will be accessible starting May 6.

The model has been widely touted as a Chinese-language alternative to ChatGPT after it became accessible to designated users for testing on April 20.

He revealed the arrangement when delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Second China (Anhui) Science and Technology Innovation Achievement Transformation Fair, which kicked off on Wednesday in Hefei, Anhui.

Liu said the engineers of the project started their work as early as Dec 15 last year.

The company's open platform has so far serviced over 4 million developers, using iFlytek's technology for their own research and development and providing a strong data base for the new product, Liu said.

While Liu's Wednesday speech was titled "A single spark can start a prairie fire", he mentioned very little about Spark Desk.

But as owner of the State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Intelligence, the firm, headquartered in Hefei, was confident in its capacity to achieve breakthroughs in generative pre-trained transformer technology, the company said in an informational session with the firm's investors at the end of January.