No advanced coding skills required: NetEase launches its ChatGPT-style application development platform
China-based video gaming giant NetEase has launched a "low-code" platform, CodeWave, that uses the company's proprietary large language model (LLM) to help enterprise customers develop simple software applications without requiring advanced coding skills. During the live-streamed event on Tuesday, NetEase explained that users only need to provide descriptions of their desired app functions and the platform will generate the required code to create the app. This forms part of NetEase's Digital Sail Business, which aims to offer cloud computing and digitisation solutions across industries such as energy, finance, transport, and pharmaceuticals.
Ding Lei, founder and CEO of NetEase, commented during the launch that "the value of artificial intelligence has been put at the forefront of production in our society," and that "We are entering an era of multiplied productivity."
NetEase is utilizing the generative capacity of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance business intelligence and asset management services. The company has been researching OpenAI's GPT family of LLMs since 2018, with over 10 pre-training models in natural language processing, text-to-image, and audio models.
NetEase's CodeWave joins other ChatGPT-style LLMs such as Ernie Bot by Baidu and Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen. To compete, Baidu plans to launch an Ernie Bot-powered smart cloud product. Alibaba, on the other hand, has embedded Tongyi Qianwen into its online collaboration tool DingTalk and its Tmall Genie, its IoT-enabled smart home appliance.
Tencent's cloud unit and TikTok owner ByteDance have also launched high-performance computing clusters designed to train LLMs with low latency.
With the launch of CodeWave, it is evident that NetEase aims to remain a major contributor to the development of AI in China and globally.
