(Yicai Global) July 6 -- Chinese internet giant NetEase will invest at least CNY10 billion (USD1.4 billion) a year to continue developing large language models and other technology, according to Chief Executive Officer William Ding.

Artificial intelligence is a “historical opportunity not seen in a century,” Ding said at a conference hosted yesterday by the Zhejiang government to promote development of the provincial platform economy. NetEase’s priority is to explore the innovation and application of LLMs at the fastest pace, he added.

With the annual investment, NetEase, whose hometown of Hangzhou is in Zhejiang, will continue to make breakthroughs in technology engines, LLMs, chips, and other fields, Ding noted. A number of the firm’s laboratories and research centers will also explore the integration and innovation of AI in gaming, education, industry, medicine, and other key sectors, he pointed out.

“AI may be no less significant than the discovery of fire,” according to Ding, who thinks that the huge improvement brought by AI to social efficiency will far outweigh its dangers, and the technology will create far more new jobs than it will eliminate.

To meet the AI field’s challenges and promote high-quality development, it is first necessary to establish market supervision rules with transparent policies and strict law enforcement, Ding said. Businesses are willing to invest long term because of the Chinese market’s huge potential and the establishment of clear norms, he said.

“Future globalization is a competition of systems and technologies, or simply, who has a higher value,” so Chinese compaines should actively compete with the world’s leading enterprises and expand its market share, Ding noted.

The old competition model in which Chinese tech firms relied on products and marketing to compete with others in terms of time and cost is gradually failing, according to Ding.

The conference was also attended by Alibaba Group Holding CEO Daniel Zhang, who said that a new wave of AI tech has swept the world this year. In such an era, the platform economy is entering a new stage, generally facing trends and opportunities around intelligence, materialization, and globalization, he added.

Editor: Martin Kadiev