It was revealed that the valuation of AI unicorn step leap star doubled in half a year, and the large-scale model entrepreneurship pattern became six small powerhouses"
The rise of large-scale model entrepreneurship rookie leaps and stars
With the continuous development of domestic large-scale model start-ups, a low-key but high-profile company is attracting widespread attention in the industry. The Shanghai-based AI model company Leap Star has been valued at $2 billion in a new round of funding, making it the most high-profile new player at the moment.
From Microsoft executives to entrepreneurs
Jiang Daxin, the founder of Step Leap Star, was a former global vice president of Microsoft and a senior AI research expert. During his years of experience at Microsoft, he has personally participated in and promoted the development of many cutting-edge technologies at Microsoft. However, for this talented technology celebrity, he was not satisfied with a stable income in a large company, but chose to take a risk and start a business and devote himself to the wave of large-scale model research and development.
In March 2023, Jiang Daxin officially resigned from Microsoft and co-founded Leap Star with his team members. This entrepreneurial team, composed of a number of senior Microsoft employees, was previously responsible for the research and development of key technologies in the fields of search engine and natural language processing within Microsoft. They have cultivated technical backbones from top scientific research institutes, and have rich experience and profound accumulation in the field of large models.
Break through technology quickly and seize the opportunity
Just 3 months after its founding, StepLeap Star has made remarkable achievements in terms of technology and products. The company has successively launched three self-developed large model products, including the 100-billion-parameter language model Step-1, the 100-billion-parameter multimodal model Step-1V, and the newly released trillion-parameter MoE language model Step-2. These large models surpass the industry-renowned GPT-3.5 in terms of performance indicators, demonstrating the strong technical strength of Step Star.
What's even more remarkable is that Step Star completed the development of these large models in a very short period of time, which fully reflects the team's efficient collaboration ability. For example, the 100 billion parameter large model Step-1 was successfully trained in only 2 months, which is an "amazing" speed in the industry. It can be said that the step star is impacting the field of large models with a rapid attitude and seizing the opportunity.
Cross-border application layout to create an ecological closed loop
In addition to its technical debut, Step Star has also demonstrated outstanding innovation capabilities at the product and application levels. The company has launched two applications for end users, namely the chat assistant "Yuewen" and the leisure and entertainment platform "Bubble Duck".
Yuewen can use its multimodal capabilities to retrieve information and summarize content based on the external documents uploaded by users, providing users with efficient personal digital assistant services. "Bubble Duck" is an open AI game world that integrates a large number of agents to bring users a new interactive entertainment experience.
The launch of these two products not only expands the layout of Step Star in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, but also provides a broader application scenario for its large-scale model technology. This all-round effort from technology to application will help Step Star build its own ecological closed loop and enhance its overall competitiveness.
Driven by capital and talents, it ushered in an explosive period
In tandem with technology and product innovation, the injection of capital and talents has also become an important force to promote the rapid development of Step Stars.
Recently, StepLeap Star received a round of financing of up to 2 billion US dollars, which is a "sky-high price" among domestic large-scale model startups. This not only reflects the high recognition of the company by the capital market, but also provides strong support for its future technological breakthroughs and product innovations.
At the same time, StepLeap Star has also attracted many top talents in the field of AI to join. In addition to the core backbone of the founding team, even Duan Nan, a senior principal researcher at Microsoft, recently joined the company. The joining of these industry elites will undoubtedly inject new momentum into the development of Leap Star and inject a strong talent guarantee into its competition in the field of large models.
From Microsoft executives to entrepreneurs, from technology research and development to product innovation, Step Star is undergoing a transformation. The rapid rise of this cutting-edge company is reshaping the domestic large-scale model entrepreneurship pattern, and has also aroused widespread attention in the industry. In the future, when we talk about domestic large-scale model start-ups, they may no longer be limited to the "five tigers" camp, but may be replaced by more fierce competition among the "six small strong".
The rise of the step star not only shows the vitality of China's AI innovation, but also indicates more possibilities in the field of large model applications. In the ever-changing wave of technology, it is exciting to see if this company can continue to lead the way.
The ambition and momentum of the Leaping Stars
The rapid rise of the leaping stars is no accident. The founding team of this AI company is from Microsoft, and they have accumulated rich experience in cutting-edge technologies such as large models, and have deep insights into industry development trends. They aimed at the current window period of large-scale model technology explosion and planned a grand strategic blueprint.
Looking to the future, the Leap Star is moving towards a more ambitious goal. Following the launch of high-performance language models and multimodal models, they released Step-2, a large MoE model with trillions of parameters. This means that the company has reached a world-class level in terms of large model training capabilities.
What's even more remarkable is that Step Star also shows advanced thinking in product layout. The two application products they launched, "Yuewen" and "Bubble Duck", not only enrich the use scenarios of large models, but also lay the foundation for the company's future ecological layout.
As a personal digital assistant based on a large model, "Yuewen" can provide intelligent information retrieval and content summary services based on various documents uploaded by users. This attempt of cross-border application not only enhances the practical value of the large model, but also creates a new work and life experience for enterprises and individual users. "Bubble Duck" is an open AI game world, which cleverly combines large-scale model technology with entertainment scenes to bring users immersive interactive fun.
The launch of these two products not only enriches the layout of Step Star in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, but also demonstrates the company's in-depth thinking about the future development direction of large model technology. They may be just the tip of the iceberg in the Leap Star's ambitious strategic layout.
It is worth mentioning that the recent financing of $2 billion from Step Star has once again aroused widespread attention in the industry. This not only confirms the high recognition of the company by the capital market, but also provides sufficient financial support for its future technological innovation and product expansion. At the same time, Stepleap Star has also brought together a group of technical elites from top companies in the industry, which has injected new impetus into the continuous improvement of its technical strength.
From technology to application, from product to ecology, Step Star is promoting the realization and implementation of large-scale model technology in an all-round way. The ambition and strength of this cutting-edge AI company are reshaping the domestic large-scale model entrepreneurship pattern, and it has also aroused high expectations for its future development prospects. In the future, it is worth waiting to see whether Step Star can continue to maintain its leading position and become the new overlord of domestic large-scale model entrepreneurship.