TikTok owner ByteDance launches low-cost Doubao AI models for enterprises, initiating a price war in crowded mainland market

Use of the Doubao large language model family is touted to cost 99.8 per cent less than OpenAI’s GPT-4 model

The aggressive pricing for the Doubao LLMs show the increased opportunity in mainland China, where more firms are scrambling to adopt GenAI tools

Reading Time:3 minutes

ByteDance had tested its Doubao large language model family internally and with selected partners for about a year before its launch on Wednesday. Image: Shutterstock

Published: 6:00pm, 15 May 2024

TikTok owner ByteDance has commercially launched a batch of large language models (LLMs) – the technology behind ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) services – that costs less than those from industry rivals, a move that could spark a new price war in the world’s second-largest economy.

The Doubao LLM family, which shares the same name as the Doubao chatbot that ByteDance introduced last year, is made up of at least eight versions. These include the top-of-the-line Doubao Pro, which can handle an input of up to 128,000 tokens, as well as the entry-level Doubao Lite and other versions specifically focused on recognising audio or creating virtual characters, the company announced at an event on Wednesday in Beijing.

Tan Dai, president of ByteDance’s cloud computing services unit Volcano Engine, said at the event that use of the Doubao Pro LLM costs as low as 0.0008 yuan (0.011 US cents) per 1,000-token prompt. In AI, a token is a fundamental unit of data that is processed by algorithms, which makes 1,000 tokens equivalent to about 750 English words.

Use of the Doubao LLMs, which launched on Wednesday via Volcano Engine, costs 99.8 per cent less than ChatGPT creator OpenAI’s GPT-4 model, which is priced at 0.42 yuan per 1,000-token prompt, according to Tan.

ByteDance’s icon for its Doubao large language model family. Photo: ByteDance

Meanwhile, Baidu’s Ernie LLM and Alibaba Group Holding’s Tongyi Qianwen each charge 0.12 yuan for every 1,000-token prompt. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

TikTok owner ByteDance launches low-cost Doubao AI models for enterprises, initiating a price war in crowded mainland market

Use of the Doubao large language model family is touted to cost 99.8 per cent less than OpenAI’s GPT-4 model The aggressive pricing for the Doubao LLMs show the increased opportunity in mainland China, where more firms are scrambling to adopt GenAI tools

Use of the Doubao large language model family is touted to cost 99.8 per cent less than OpenAI’s GPT-4 model

The aggressive pricing for the Doubao LLMs show the increased opportunity in mainland China, where more firms are scrambling to adopt GenAI tools