How to Access Chinese LLM Chatbots
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How to Access Chinese LLM Chatbots Worldwide
Since the Chinese government started permitting AI companies to release their large language models (LLMs) to the public in the summer of 2023, hundreds of these models have become available. While accessing these models can be challenging for users in the West due to language barriers and registration requirements, many chatbots support English and are relatively easy to use. Whether you are curious about their performance or want to conduct serious experiments, various methods exist to access Chinese LLM-powered chatbots.
Accessing with a Chinese Phone Number
If you have a Chinese phone number, accessing most of these models is straightforward. In China, a domestic phone number serves as a proxy for identity verification, enabling access to nearly all online services, including AI chatbots. Simply visit the model's website and register using your Chinese phone number.
However, some major models, such as those developed by Huawei, the cybersecurity firm 360, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, still require a Chinese phone number. Obtaining one outside China can be challenging, but alternative methods exist.
Accessing without a Chinese Phone Number
Some Chinese AI platforms allow users outside China to access their chatbots directly. Registration typically involves signing up with your phone number and entering a verification code sent via text message. Examples include:
Doubao: Developed by ByteDance, Doubao can generate text and images, search the internet, and summarize documents.
ChatGLM: A multimodal tool by the AI unicorn Zhipu, ChatGLM offers features similar to Doubao and is accessible to non-Chinese numbers.
DeepSeek: Known for its affordability, DeepSeek offers free casual use and charges $0.14 per million tokens for business users. Registration is simple with an email address, providing access to both text and coding chatbots.
Hugging Face
Hugging Face, a global AI community similar to GitHub for AI, hosts many open-source LLMs, including several from Chinese companies. These companies often provide demos, allowing users to interact with the models without writing any code. Hugging Face does not require a Chinese phone number for registration, making it a convenient workaround.
Qwen: Developed by Alibaba, Qwen recently topped Hugging Face’s Open LLM Leaderboard, surpassing models from Meta, Microsoft, and other Chinese companies. You can chat with Qwen’s 2.0 version here.
Hunyuan-DiT: Tencent's model can generate images based on text prompts, although other models based on the Hunyuan foundation are not accessible on Hugging Face.
Yi (01.AI): Founded by Taiwanese AI investor Kai-Fu Lee, Yi offers a chatbot (currently down) and an AI tool for image analysis on Hugging Face. DeepSeek provides a similar visual analysis tool on the platform.
ModelScope
Released by Alibaba in November 2022, ModelScope is the Chinese AI community's domestic equivalent of Hugging Face. Since it allows registration with non-Chinese numbers, it provides another useful workaround for accessing Chinese LLMs.
Baichuan: Backed by Alibaba, this AI startup has made its models available on ModelScope for public testing.
LLM Arena: Created by Open Compass, an AI lab in Shanghai, this application lets users compare responses from different models. Integrating 11 Chinese models, the Arena provides access to several otherwise restricted tools for non-Chinese users.
The Arena can generate answers from Baidu’s Ernie Bot, iFlytek’s Spark, Minimax, Moonshot, and InternLM. While photo generation or uploading is not supported, it is an excellent tool for comparing text outputs from Chinese and Western models like Llama 3 and Cohere’s Command R+.
Chatbots That Require a Chinese Number
Chatbots That Do Not Require a Chinese Number