According to EqualOcean, Kunlun Tech(昆仑万维)'s subsidiary, Star Group, plans to acquire the entire equity of Singularity AI Technology Limited (referred to as "Singularity AI" or "奇点智源" in Chinese) through an issuance of shares.
After negotiations, the total price for Singularity AI's equity in this transaction is set at USD 160 million. Upon completion of the transaction, Singularity AI's shareholders or their designated affiliates will obtain a 25% equity stake in Star Group. In order to fully develop a leading AGI platform, Kunlun Tech's wholly-owned subsidiary, Kunlun Group Limited, plans to provide a capital increase of USD 400 million to Star Group after the completion of the transaction.
Singularity AI is dedicated to the research and development of general artificial intelligence, with a current focus on large-scale pre-training models and developer APIs for natural language processing. Its main products and services include general developer APIs, chatbots, and knowledge extraction. The core team members possess extensive expertise in the fields of artificial intelligence and computer science, along with substantial experience in engineering, enabling them to efficiently drive the implementation of advanced technologies.
In October 2020, Singularity AI initiated the development of a Chinese version of the GPT-3 model and completed the training of a 14-billion-parameter Chinese GPT-3 model in March 2021. In June 2020, they released the Chinese GPT-3 API with this massive 14-billion-parameter model. Currently, Singularity AI has collaborated with Kunlun Tech to jointly launch the "Tiangong" 3.5 model, a dual-hundred-billion-parameter large language model. The testing of this model commenced on April 17, 2023.
As a large language model, "Tiangong" exhibits powerful capabilities in natural language processing and intelligent interaction, demonstrating advanced autonomous learning and emergent intelligence. It possesses a vast knowledge base covering various fields such as science, technology, culture, art, and history, and boasts impressive memory capabilities. Presently, it can efficiently handle various applications including intelligent question answering, interactive chatting, and text generation, with rapid, accurate, and high-quality responses.
In 2022, the development of Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) has been remarkable, with an exponential growth rate in iterations. Industry giants such as Google, Meta, Baidu(百度), and others have been consistently expanding their presence in this field, and unicorn startups like Stability AI and Jasper AI have emerged. According to predictions by 6pen(AI-generated artwork platform), AI's involvement in generating image content is projected to reach 10% to 30% over the next five years, creating a potential market space exceeding USD 60 billion. Considering the rapidly increasing demand for content in the next generation of the internet, foreign business consulting firm Acumen Research and Consulting predicts that the AIGC market will reach USD 110 billion by 2030.
This acquisition will also facilitate synergies among different business units within Kunlun Tech, accelerating the iterative upgrades of the "Tiangong" 3.5 large-scale model and providing further support for the research, development, and commercialization of AI music and AI gaming products by StarArk. Additionally, this initiative will enable Kunlun Tech to consolidate resources effectively, fully driving the rapid development of the company in the AGI and AIGC domains, injecting strong momentum into its long-term growth.