
AI alert: Chinese GenAI tools have begun to startle the world
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Chinese AI companies are laser-focused on closing the development gap with the US. Despite Washington’s efforts to hold the industry back, it’s proving it can stay competitive with Silicon Valley.
I spent some time playing around with Vidu 2.0, a revamped AI video generator that has been dubbed a domestic rival to OpenAI’s Sora. Released by Shengshu Technology, a Beijing-based startup with ties to Tsinghua University, the public platform lets anyone from around the world turn images into short videos. There were still notable inconsistencies in some of the clips I created: wonky facial expressions, limb movements that seemed to defy the laws of physics and other clear indications that these were AI-generated.
These limitations also seem to plague Sora. But I was most impressed by its speed. In a matter of seconds, I was able to create fake clips of Donald Trump crying.
The company says the real breakthrough is its ability to cut costs, claiming its short-form video content is produced 55% cheaper than the industry average. Vidu 2.0’s release came on the heels of another AI development from China: DeepSeek-V3. Not only did this large language model (LLM) score impressively on global benchmarks, but it was reportedly developed and trained at a remarkably low cost.
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