Alibaba Researcher’s Schedule Offers Rare Look Into China’s LLM Race

Alibaba vs. OpenAI engineers in the LLM race

A recent post by an Alibaba researcher has provided a rare insight into China’s intense competition to match OpenAI’s capabilities in developing large language models (LLMs).

Binyuan Hui, an engineer at Alibaba’s LLM team Qwen, shared his daily routine, revealing similarities to a viral post by an OpenAI researcher.

Both start work at 9 am with meetings, followed by periods of coding, training, and ideation. Even after returning home, they run experiments and ponder model improvements late into the night. This demanding regimen reflects Chinese firms’ urgency to narrow the LLM gap with Silicon Valley.

While intense schedules were once associated with “traditional” Chinese internet jobs, Hui appears driven by personal motivation to compete in AI.

Alibaba’s efforts to dominate the LLM landscape

The pace also mirrors how quickly Alibaba rolls out new LLMs. Last year, it open-sourced multi-lingual models and integrated Qwen into enterprise products.

With no clear domestic leader yet, Alibaba aggressively invests in startups while developing its strengths, like multilingual models. In December, it released SeaLLM for Southeast Asian languages to support its regional footprint.

By revealing developers’ demanding yet willing commitment, Hui’s post underscores China’s laser focus on competing in AI as a national priority. Chinese researchers are working tirelessly to match and even surpass Silicon Valley in LLMs.