True to form, large corporations are putting ChatPT on lockdown Abyss Lukpat tells us in JPMorgan Restricts Employees From Using ChatGPT (paywall). This was not due to a particular incident, but simply a general sentiment that ChatGPT was bad. Verizon is doing the same, as is the New York City School system. Meanwhile, other companies are, for now, using ChatGPT to write emails and research topics.

Yet, as Asa Fitch tells us, in Chip Makers See ChatGPT Stirring Strong Demand for Advanced Processors (paywall), so far this is not impacting the chip makers behind the algorithms. Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya predicts that generative AI will add $20 billion a year to the overall AI chip market by 2027. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says “There’s no question that whatever our views are of this year as we enter the year has been fairly dramatically changed as a result of the last 60, 90 days.”

Meanwhile a similar frenzy is going on over in China as ChatGPT Fever Sweeps China as Tech Firms Seek Growth (Karen Hao, Shen Lu, paywall). ChatGPT is blocked in China, but local companies are working on their own versions, such as Ernie Bot, with companies such as Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent amongst those investing. Jacky Wong gives more detail in ChatGPT Clones Are Preparing to Take Over China (paywall). China does have a thriving AI business community, but it tends to focus on vision and surveillance, not the same toolset that large language models use, in general. These models thrive on huge volumes of data, and the fact of the matter is, there’s just more English-language data out there than Chinese-language data, not to mention what Chinese data is out there tends to be heavily censored. US export controls on the advanced chips needed to power generative AI applications will also prove a problem for Chinese progress in generative AI. No news yet on Russian progress in the field.