Meta’s Llama AI Model Lands on Alibaba Cloud for Clients Use

The cloud computing branch of Alibaba has announced that it has become the first Chinese company to endorse Meta’s open-source artificial intelligence (AI) model Llama. This will enable Alibaba’s Chinese corporate users to construct programs based on the model.

This month, Meta published Llama 2, a commercial edition of Llama, with the intention of offering companies a robust and cost-free alternative to the expensive proprietary models that are supplied by OpenAI and Google. At the time, Meta stated that Microsoft was its favored partner for Llama 2, but that other partners would also be able to provide access to the product.

“Today, Alibaba Cloud has launched the first training and deployment solution for the entire Llama 2 series in China, welcoming all developers to create customized large models on Alibaba Cloud,” Alibaba Cloud said on its WeChat Account.

In a time when Alibaba’s cloud section is experiencing increased rivalry at home and is planning an initial public offering, the company’s connection with Meta could provide Alibaba with clients who remain loyal to the company over time.

The United States of America has made it a priority to limit the access of Chinese businesses to a variety of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies that have been created in the United States, particularly in the field of AI semiconductors. By acquiring Llama 2, Alibaba would be able to advance its own artificial intelligence (AI) aspirations and remain current with the most recent advances in technology.

It might strengthen connections with the second-largest economy in the world for Meta, whose Facebook social media network has long been prohibited in China along with other Western platforms.

Beijing has been encouraging Chinese enterprises to rapidly develop domestic and “controllable” AI models that can compete with those built by corporations in the United States. This is part of China’s effort to catch up to the United States in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). In recent months, Alibaba and other companies in its industry, such as Tencent Holdings, have been working diligently to develop their own AI models.

Llama 2 is a big machine learning model that, like the models utilized by popular bots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, has been developed on a vast amount of data to generate outputs that are coherent and seem realistic.

According to Meta, the use of Llama 2 will be free of charge for businesses that have less than 700 million active users on a monthly basis. Applications that service a larger user base will be required to acquire a license from Meta.

In addition, Alibaba stated that if a customer wishes to use Llama 2 to offer their offerings to the Chinese people, they will be obligated to stick with Chinese regulations and remain clear of practices and information that may be harmful to China.

Check out: OpenAI Introduces Customized Instructions for ChatGPT.