Introducing AI Business Asia

In today’s newsletter:

• Moshi: The world’s 1st real-time voice AI released

• The ITEC Competition: US$1M prize for the taking

• Insights into navigating LLMs and GenAI for Asia

• An AI Cold War on the rise

• 5 AI tools in the spotlight

Read time: 6-8 mins

OpenAI ChatGPT4's open-source rival has arrived; it is French and has a Japanese name.

Kyutai unveiled Moshi yesterday, a real-time open-source native multimodal foundation model that can listen and speak, causing an excited uproar in the presentation and online.

Why it’s so exciting?

Moshi is able to understand and express emotions, with different accents for input and output. It can also listen and generate audio and speech while maintaining a flow of textual thoughts. Moshi can also handle two audio streams at once, allowing it to listen and talk at the same time.

Very much closer to a human being (or Skynet).

What so novel about this model?

On a high level: increased conversation quality, latency, and accessibility.

So why should you care?

• Companies can better leverage LLMs to improve customer interactions and experience

• Asia is home to many different languages, Moshi being able to differentiate and train on accents will be a gamechanger

Clickthrough here to read more of the analysis on this.

Try the Moshi demo, watch the keynote or read the announcement.

Beijing Startup Competition with a US$1M Grand Prize

Check out the International Talent Entrepreneurship Conference (ITEC), a Beijing-based startup competition running since 2012. The Grand Prize winner stands to win a US$1M package of cash and benefits.  Registrations end 31 August 2024. Give it a shot and sign up now! 

Navigating the Evolving Landscape of LLM and GenAI - Insights for Asian Startups and Enterprises

In this op-ed piece, discover the transformative impact of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Generative AI (GenAI) on Asian startups and enterprises. Leo provides a deep dive into the current AI landscape, covering key layers of the GenAI tech stack, including cloud infrastructure, foundational models, and domain-specific applications. Key topics include:

• The competitive dynamics between leading tech giants;

• The rise of open-source models; and

• The opportunities and challenges faced by businesses in Asia

Whether you are a business executive, founder, or investor, the article offers valuable insights to navigate the AI revolution and make informed decisions for your organization’s AI strategy.

Read more here.

News from the East: An AI Cold War

We are observing an ongoing "AI Cold War" between China and the United States characterized by intense technological competition, with the US currently leading in foundational AI models and chip technology, while China rapidly advancing its capabilities despite facing challenges from US export controls and regulatory hurdles.

• China AI Startups Head to Singapore in Bid for Global Growth amidst the rising tensions and competition between the US and China, to get away from the new AI Cold War

• It’s official: Developers in mainland China, and Hong Kong will lose access to all OpenAI platforms on July 9

• China-led resolution for a ‘free, open, inclusive and nondiscriminatory’ environment” passes in United Nations General Assembly (coming right after OpenAI’s announcement to shut door to China, coincidence or not?)

• Naturally, the market will adjust:

  • Chinese AI firms woo OpenAI users as U.S. company plans API restrictions

  • but not without difficulty, Chinese AI models will need at least two years to catch up

News from the West:

• Mass exodus of key personnel: Stability AI is in big trouble 

• Adept co-founders shift over into Amazon’s AGI organisation, leaving Zach Brock, Head of Engineering, to take over as CEO; we are starting to see the consolidation of AI talent by the big boys.

• Responsible AI on the Rise: Anthropic looks to fund a robust, third-party AI evaluation ecosystem and are calling for applications. 

• On the other hand, Microsoft successfully tested a new type of AI jailbreak called “Skeleton Key” which employs a multi-turn strategy to convince an AI model to ignore built-in safeguards, unable to distinguish between malicious and legitimate requests. 

• Apple could announce a Google Gemini deal this fall

• Amazon investigates allegations of Perplexity of breaking the rules after Wired fired shots accusing the AI startup of scraping its web archives without permission. 

Trending Tools

1. Isheji (China) - An AI assistant for generating powerpoint themes and presentations with smart copywriting

2. QuickCreator (US) - Build and write SEO-optimised blogs quickly with AI

3. RunComfy (US) - Unleash creativity without the hassle of setup and configuring video workflows

4. Featherless.ai (Singapore) - Run any Llama model from Huggingface, serverlessly

5. Window.ai (US) - Chrome is adding window.ai — a Gemini Nano AI model right inside your browser