GigaChat to take on ChatGPT: Russia’s rival to OpenAI chatbot’s aims to be a multimodal tool

GigaChat from Russia’s Sberbank can converse intelligently in Russian and can also generate images.

GigaChat has been reportedly developed as a multimodal tool with prospects for adding video, audio and more capabilities in the future. (Express Image)

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OpenAI’s AI innovation ChatGPT is evidently giving sleepless nights to tech giants and governments worldwide. The latest to join the bandwagon of AI-powered technologies is the Russian lender Sberbank. The company recently unveiled its chatbot GigaChat as a rival to OpenAI’s sensational ChatGPT. At present, GigaChat is accessible only in an invite-only testing mode.

According to the organisation, GigaChat’s ability to converse fluently and intelligently in Russian is its biggest distinguishing feature when compared to other global neural networks. Reportedly, after Western nations minimised their exports to Russia and sanctions in the aftermath of the Ukraine crisis, Sberbank has been heavily investing in tech. This is seen as Russia’s way to lessen its dependence on imports. And, the latest chatbot is an outcome of this upheaval.

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The state-owned bank is among the preferred choices of average Russians when it comes to banking and financial services. It is also one of the oldest banks in the country, established sometime in 1841.

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Reportedly, the bank holds 30 per cent of all Russian deposits and loans. Sberbank is currently Russia’s largest financial institution that is currently working towards becoming the country’s tech leader. GigaChat is its latest innovation as part of its digital transformation drive. Earlier the bank made headlines for investing in a variety of tech ventures from autonomous cars to cloud services.

What can GigaChat do?

Numerous reports suggest that GigaChat can answer questions, hold conversations, write program code to develop software, and even generate images. The tool by Sberbank has been trained in Russian and the institution also claims that it has multimodal features, giving it an edge over ChatGPT which is for now limited to text.

Perhaps, the most notable distinction between GigaChat and others would be that it is allowing Russians to use the AI chatbot in Russian. However, the chatbot is not quite equipped to hold lengthy conversations.

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It is learned that Sberbank is banking on GigaChat’s image generation capabilities, something which is currently spearheaded by OpenAI’s DALL-E image generator. GigaChat has been reportedly developed as a multimodal tool with prospects for adding video, audio and more capabilities in the future.

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It is to be noted that the Russian tech industry is not alien to AI and all developments related to it. Over the past few years, Russian hackers have harnessed AI for content and deep fakes. Some media houses and companies in Russia have also resorted to deep fakes for advertisements.

Russia’s tiff with ChatGPT

As of now, ChatGPT is not available in Russia. This is because the country is increasingly concerned about its potential misuse. The country has been on guard and is in a bit of an indirect war with the Western nations. In the wake of the ongoing, Russia has distanced itself from OpenAI’s chatbot as it is not in a position to let AI take over the narrative.