On June 25, multiple media outlets in China reported that OpenAI would halt API services in the country. Developers received notifications indicating that starting July 9, OpenAI would implement measures to restrict API traffic from unsupported regions. Users seeking continued access to OpenAI's services must do so from approved locations.
This announcement was corroborated by various developers interviewed by China Business News, with some noting issues such as API shutdowns, account deactivations, and refund requests dating back to May while using ChatGPT. User feedback on platforms like Weibo and X indicated that many developers received shutdown notices. Currently, OpenAI offers API services in 161 countries and regions, excluding mainland China and Hong Kong. OpenAI’s products have never been officially available in the Chinese market. Before the shutdown notification, many developers had relied on workarounds, such as frontend development or proxy deployment, to use OpenAI’s APIs, with some even launching startups based on these services.
Entrepreneur Zhang Xin (pseudonym) reported losing access to OpenAI’s API in May. After seeking clarification from OpenAI, he learned that his region was unsupported. Another developer, Li Lin (pseudonym), received prior violation notices, often citing policy breaches. After the service suspension, Zhang commented that during May, as Chinese companies raced to launch competitive large-scale models at reduced costs, his team shifted focus to domestic platforms.
The motivations behind OpenAI’s notifications to Chinese developers and their geopolitical implications remain to be fully understood. Efforts to contact OpenAI for additional insights have gone unanswered. Gong Bin, founding partner of Qianxun Think Tank, suggested that OpenAI’s decision aligns with business compliance on legal and data security grounds, essential for companies operating in diverse jurisdictions. However, political factors should not be overlooked. On June 22, the U.S. Treasury proposed investment restrictions in semiconductor, quantum computing, and AI sectors that could impact China's involvement.
As OpenAI enforces these new measures on July 9, expert opinions diverge on the effects for the Chinese market. Some industry professionals worry that while China is developing its large models, many are still behind OpenAI’s latest GPT-4 multimodal model. The service interruption may widen this gap, potentially forcing projects reliant on "wrapper" versions of OpenAI's products out of the market. Conversely, others maintain that OpenAI's high pricing has limited its competitive edge, with several Chinese models emerging as serious contenders after a year of significant advancements. Given the nascent state of large model applications, the immediate demand for OpenAI’s services could be lukewarm among Chinese developers.
In the long term, challenges from the shifting international landscape could spur innovation among Chinese manufacturers. In response to the API shutdown, several domestic large model companies quickly introduced "migration" policies to support affected developers. Zhipu AI launched a “Special Migration Plan” for OpenAI's API users, promising an easy transition to their domestic models, along with substantial token incentives and training support. Similarly, Alibaba Cloud's Bailian introduced cost-effective alternatives and began offering free tokens and migration assistance to developers.
According to recent benchmarks from Stanford, the Qwen2-72B achieved a score of 0.824, placing it tied for fourth globally with GPT-4. The cost to invoke the Qwen-plus model on Alibaba Cloud is approximately 0.004 yuan per thousand tokens, just 1/50th the cost of GPT-4.
Wang Zhongyuan, director of the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, remarked on the substantial progress of Chinese large models over the past year, noting that they have surpassed GPT-3.5 and are rapidly nearing GPT-4 performance levels. Some Chinese models even exceed GPT-4 in Chinese language scenarios. Despite ongoing updates to OpenAI’s offerings, the gap is narrowing, indicating that the Chinese market is poised to leverage its advantages in scenarios and data availability.
As Chinese large models continue to evolve, they are expected to achieve competitive parity with GPT-4.
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