China, Inspired by Sora... AI-Created Animation Broadcasted

The first artificial intelligence (AI) cartoon in China has been produced and started airing. Inspired by OpenAI's newly released video generation AI service 'Sora,' there is a growing momentum to accelerate the production of related content.

According to local Chinese media on the 28th, China Central Television (CCTV) recently began broadcasting the AI animation 'Qianqiu Shisong (千秋詩頌).' Each episode of this animation, which runs about 7 minutes, received AI support throughout?from art design to video generation effects and post-production.

'Qianqiu Shisong' consists of a total of 26 episodes and is a series that contains ancient Chinese poetry and its backstories. It was produced through the jointly developed 'Central Audiovisual Media Model,' which integrates CCTV's vast audiovisual data and the technology of the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Research Institute.

This model generated scenes based on real photographs. The ancient Chinese poems featured in each episode were selected from over 200 pieces appearing in the national unified language textbooks, and AI technology was applied based on the media model to create ink wash painting versions.

Pengpai Newspaper explained, "Although there is still a certain gap between China's video generation models and advanced technologies like Sora, there is an advantage in understanding Chinese culture and integrating media editing processes." It added, "To equip the model with the ability to understand ancient poetry and words, a large amount of accurate data was supplied and trained, enabling precise implementation of historical figures and architecture based on historical evidence." It further noted, "It can accurately understand words such as 'Guofeng (national style),' 'Tang Dynasty,' 'writing,' and 'pen painting,' allowing production in various styles."

In China, while surprised by the emergence of OpenAI's 'Sora,' voices expressing confidence that they can catch up within 1 to 2 years are emerging. Zhou Hongyi, founder of China's largest cybersecurity company Qihoo 360 and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, recently said, "It may currently be difficult for China to create a large language model surpassing GPT-4, but surpassing GPT-4 in some vertical fields is entirely possible." ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, also announced plans to launch a test site for a similar video technology model within 2 to 3 months.