OpenAI warns Chinese: Access will be cut
OpenAI wants to strengthen its geographical access barriers and prevent them from being undermined. This is aimed for instance on China, North Korea and Iran.
(Image: Weitwinkel/Shutterstock.com)
OpenAI is available in most countries around the world, but not everywhere. These restrictions are apparently often circumvented. The company has now issued a warning: As of July 9, OpenAI will get serious and block accounts that attempt to access automated application programming interfaces (API) from "non-supported countries and territories".
Users in the People's Republic of China (including Hong Kong) have received a circular to this effect, reports the South China Morning Post (SCMP). The list of supported countries is long, but some other prominent names besides China are missing, including the Russian Federation and the territories it occupies in Ukraine, Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela. Whether OpenAI has also sent warnings to these countries is not yet known to the editorial team.
According to the SCMP, there are not only individual users in China who access OpenAI's AI services via virtual private networks (VPNs), but also companies that operate proxy servers abroad to use OpenAI's interfaces. These companies operate services for third parties with the help of OpenAIs, apparently because domestic Large Language Models (LLMs) are not (yet) as good. The provider no longer wants to tolerate this. Incidentally, payments from non-supported areas also lead to an account block, even if the access is from elsewhere.
Competition within China
According to the newspaper report , there are more than 200 companies in China that have set up their own LLMs. In addition to large Chinese tech companies such as Baidu and TikTok operator Bytedance, numerous start-ups are also taking part in the race for the best Chinese LLM. They are not lazy and are enticing companies that may soon be cut off from OpenAI with offers to switch, including credits and free training.
Apple is also looking for partners in China for its "Apple Intelligence" offering, an assistant (Siri) enhanced with AI services from OpenAI and Google. Apple needs local partners in China for this. On the one hand, the services of the two US companies are not available there, and on the other, they did not receive a license from Beijing anyway. And this is needed before AI training can begin.
(ds)
