The Global War of Models

AI expert and former director at Google, Microsoft and Apple, Kai-Fu Lee could have chosen to work in any corner of the world – and yet confidently picked Beijing as the venue to develop his own business. Founded in early 2023, his startup 01.AI began operating on the down-low, only to showcase Yi-34B, an open-source Large Language Model (LLM), six months later, available to programmers in English and Chinese. It clicked immediately, surpassing leading market models in key metrics, including Meta’s Llama 2.