5 June 2024
Alibaba Group Holdings has made a significant investment of approximately 200 million yuan (USD $27.6 million) in the Hangzhou-based artificial intelligence (AI) education start-up, Zhejiang Jingzhunxue. This strategic investment is aimed at bolstering the development and promotion of the start-up’s innovative AI-powered education device, Bong.
Zhejiang Jingzhunxue announced that the financial support from Alibaba will be instrumental in advancing Bong, a personalised and interactive teaching tool designed to enhance the educational experience for students. Bong is powered by a combination of Alibaba’s Qwen model and Jingzhunxue’s self-developed large language model (LLM), offering AI-generated video lessons delivered by digital teachers.
The launch of Bong is scheduled for June. The device aims to address the limitations in personalised education by leveraging advanced AI technologies. In a statement, Chief Executive Yang Renbin highlighted the challenges in the current educational landscape, stating, “The bottleneck in personalised education fundamentally lies in constraints on the supply side.”
This investment is part of Alibaba’s broader strategy to support generative AI start-ups that aspire to develop leading alternatives to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which remains officially unavailable in China. Through these investments, Alibaba is positioning itself at the forefront of AI innovation in the education sector. This announcement follows the launch of OpenAI’s very own education offering, ChatGPT EDU, targeted at higher education institutions.
