【双语阅读】大模型“六小虎”登场，谁能在AI 2.0时代胜出？（中）

CaixinGlobal财新国际 · 公众号 · · 2025-01-08 18:00

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Finding a niche

For many of China’s emerging AI startups, the chief challenge is surviving the competition with established domestic giants that dominate market share and user access. Major internet companies like Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and ByteDance have already launched foundational models and a range of applications, including large language models, text-to-image and text-to-video technologies.

In 2024, startups targeting consumer-facing AI applications faced fierce competition from ByteDance, which has leveraged its technological capabilities and vast user base to dominate the market. Moonshot, which initially led the text generation sector with its AI chatbot Kimi Chat launched in late 2023, quickly found itself overtaken when ByteDance stepped into the arena with its AI assistant Doubao last May. With the advantage of driving traffic through popular short-video platform Douyin, Doubao became the fastest-growing mobile app in the past six months.

长文本一火，字节跳动、阿里、百度及其他大模型创业公司迅速跟进推出类似产品。字节跳动2024年5月才推出的AI对话助手“豆包”，借助能在抖音投流买量的“独家”优势一跃后来居上，成为过去半年增长最快的移动应用。

By September, Doubao had reached 42 million monthly active users, becoming China’s largest AI app, far surpassing competitors. ByteDance’s strategy was bolstered by its aggressive pricing: Doubao’s large model was priced 99% below industry norms, prompting competitors like Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud to cut their prices. In December, ByteDance released a visual understanding model for Doubao at 85% below the average price.

This price-driven approach led to a surge in demand, with the daily token usage for Doubao’s model growing exponentially, from 120 billion in May to 4 trillion by mid-December. Doubao had already formed partnerships with 80% of mainstream car brands and was integrated into more than 300 million smart devices, according to the company.

低价驱动之下，豆包大模型调用量激增。火山引擎总裁谭待称，豆包大模型在2024年5月刚推出时，日均Tokens（字符串）使用量是1200亿；7月增长至5000亿；9月为1.3万亿；而截至12月15日，日均Token的数据已突破4万亿，7个月时间增长超过33倍。截至目前，豆包大模型已与八成主流汽车品牌合作，并接入多家手机、PC等智能终端，覆盖终端设备约3亿台。

With the industry increasingly in a contest of scale and access to traffic, competing with ByteDance’s resources and user base is the key challenge for Chinese AI startups, industry sources said.

Differentiation has emerged as a critical strategy for large model startups. As major internet companies concentrate on comprehensive, all-encompassing chatbot products that address every user need, opportunities are opening up for startups to focus on specialized niches, according to an industry expert.

一名国内大模型公司创始人向财新称，其公司起初也曾主攻文字生成，希望成为“中国的ChatGPT”，但产品用户增长难有突破。“最后就是拼资源、拼用户量，创业公司如何打得过字节跳动？”他称，除了享有流量资源，豆包App还凭借庞大的产品团队令移动端用户体验明显高于其他同类产品，而创业公司很难负担如此庞大的产品团队。

另一名国内大模型公司创始人也认为，打造2C超级应用，要看能否打造足够的差异化，避开互联网厂商的“射程”是关键。“Kimi之前有一波小量，但现在字节跳动饱和式攻击，已经完全把它盖住了。你在‘大厂’的射程里做一个类似ChatGPT的产品没有任何机会，做2C要做出差异化。”

Baichuan AI is betting on the finance, education and healthcare sectors. According to Ru, developing healthcare large models requires thousands of computing units, and competition is limited as traditional healthcare information providers lack the ability to master core AI technologies.

MiniMax, founded by veterans of AI technology developer SenseTime, launched the Chinese AI platform Glow in 2022

By the end of 2023, Baichuan AI’s models had reached GPT-3.5 capabilities, with applications in finance for intelligent consultation and customer service, as well as in education. With the model advancing to GPT-4 level in May, the company saw an opportunity to enter healthcare.

In August, Baichuan AI partnered with Beijing Children’s Hospital to launch a pediatric health model designed for various scenarios, including services for both patients and doctors. “AI doctors can now reduce error rates to just 1%, much lower than human doctors,” Ru said.

茹立云介绍，2023年底，百川智能的模型能力已达GPT-3.5的水平，落地金融的智能问答、客服，以及教育等场景；随着2024年5月模型能力达到GPT-4，落地医疗行业的时机成熟。2024年8月，百川智能和北京儿童医院达成合作，计划推出具备儿科医院知识、通过儿科执业医师考试的儿童健康大模型，面向家庭需求的“私人儿科医生”，面向基层普通医生的“数字儿科医生”，面向儿科专家的“临床科研助理”，以及面向儿童慢性病管理的“管理机器人”等应用场景。

Soul Capital’s Han, an investor in Baichuan AI, said that the success of AI doctors depends not only on model capabilities but also on government policies related to healthcare and insurance. Ultimately, policies will determine the feasibility of AI doctors in practical applications, he said.

韩彦是百川智能的投资人，在他看来，AI医生能否实现，一方面取决于模型能力的提升速度；另一方面，医疗产业和医保、政府政策高度相关，最终还是政策决定AI医生能否落地应用。

01.AI, which focuses on corporate customers, is targeting the retail market by offering AI generated live-streaming and marketing services to replace human hosts. Co-founder Qi Ruifeng said that AI-generated content has reduced live-streaming costs for stores by 90%. “While individual stores may not save much, the vast number of stores in China — 7 million in catering alone — presents a significant market opportunity,” Qi said.

同样从2B市场切入的零一万物，则选择主攻标准化程度高的零售行业营销内容，推出数字人直播服务、营销视频生成服务，以数字人直播店取代真人直播。零一万物联合创始人祁瑞峰对财新称，直播带货一名主播背后，一般需要运营、写稿两名支持人员，但在AI生成内容辅助下，已实现一名运营人员可以支撑20名主播，店铺直播成本下降了90%。“一个店铺一天可能省不了多少钱，但中国光餐饮就有700万家店，这是一个巨大的市场空间。”

Qi believes that Chinese large model companies have an edge in the enterprise market, as Western firms are slower to adopt because of strict data compliance regulations. Moreover, companies like OpenAI and Anthropic do not provide tailored services for enterprise clients, giving Chinese firms an advantage. “Once Chinese companies dominate locally, they will be well-positioned to expand globally, especially in enterprise applications, possibly ahead of the U.S.,” he said.

祁瑞峰指出，中国大模型公司在企业级市场更有优势。欧美企业由于严格的数据合规要求，试用大模型进展慢于中国。此外，包括OpenAI、Anthropic在内的欧美大模型公司本身不做企业客户私有化部署服务，而国内公司的优势在于工程、交付能力：“中国大模型公司在国内‘卷’出来之后，绝对有立足全球的能力，尤其企业级应用反而可能走在美国前面。”

Han cautioned that B2B businesses often face high fulfillment costs and low margins. Large models will eventually become as ubiquitous as internet technologies, reducing the need for many service providers, Han said.

Writing by Han Wei ‍ ‍

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