since it was released ChatGPT at the end of 2022, we have been invaded by a horde of artificial intelligence chatbots. Some are more capable and innovative than others, of course, but clearly no one wants to be left out of this race. It is therefore not surprising that sberbankthe largest bank in Russia, has come up with its own solution to rival OpenAI’s.
As reported Reutersthe tool in question is called GigaChat. It is available from this Monday, although only as a test and with limited access by invitation. However, it’s not too clear how far this ChatGPT clone will be released.
The aforementioned media indicates that Sberbank, whose largest shareholder is the Russian National Investment Fund, managed by the government of Vladimir Putin, has been investing heavily in the technology sector. A determination that has deepened in recent years with the aim of reducing dependence on imported products and services. Especially since the application of strong international sanctions for the Ukrainian War. As it was, and with the global frenzy over ChatGPT, devoting resources to an AI chatbot was a logical decision.
In fact, Sberbank has published an article on its website announcing the launch of its new artificial intelligence tool. It has been titled “GigaChat vs. ChatGPT: Sber opens access to its latest neural network model”. Unfortunately, it appears that the press release is not available outside of Russia, unless you are willing to install certificates from the National Training Center of the Russian Ministry of Digital Development in your browser.
GigaChat, the answer to ChatGPT from the largest Russian bank
Beyond not having specific details of the Russian ChatGPT clone, Sberbank seems to imply that the AI is of its own development. Nevertheless, Reuters collects that the feature most promoted by the bank is that the chatbot you can communicate in Russian more fluently and intelligently than other international tools.
As we said at the beginning, the scope that GigaChat will have is unknown. Although it would not be unusual for Russia to opt for a strategy similar to that of China, which has developed its own chatbots —through firms such as Baidu and Alibaba— to counteract the blocking of ChatGPT. A measure with which the Asian giant has tried to maintain its strict control over the moderation of online content, especially that linked to sensitive topics.
So things, it is unlikely that this new alternative to ChatGPT can be found beyond the limits of Russia. And surely Sberbank is not interested in its international availability either.
What this new release does make clear is that no one wants to miss out on the opportunity to jump on the generative AI bandwagon. From late 2022 to date, we have seen an explosion of platforms offering features similar to OpenAI, or even using the GPT language model to work. Although keeping them running is not easy or cheap. As recently reported, keeping ChatGPT active costs its developers about $700,000 per day.