Chinese AI ‘tiger’ MiniMax launches text-to-video-generating model to rival OpenAI’s Sora

 



Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up MiniMax has launched video-01, its new text-to-video-generating model, heating up competition with other mainland tech firms that look to catch up with the advances made by OpenAI’s Sora.


MiniMax – known as one of China’s AI “tigers” along with Zhipu AI, Baichuan and Moonshot AI – made video-01 available to the public via its website after unveiling the new tool at the company’s first developer conference in Shanghai on Saturday.Video-01 enables a user to input a text description to create a video that is up to six seconds in length. The process from the text prompt to generating a video takes about two minutes.


MiniMax founder and chief executive Yan Junjie said at the event that video-01 is the first iteration of the firm’s video-generating tool. He pointed out that future updates will enable users to generate videos from images and to edit these videos, according to local media reports.A video generated by OpenAI’s Sora is displayed on a smartphone. 


Video-01 from MiniMax reflects how Chinese tech firms have been making aggressive moves into this nascent AI market segment, several months after OpenAI first unveiled samples of videos created by Sora in February and prompted concerns about the country’s ability to keep up with US advances. Sora remains unreleased to the public.Founded in December 2021, MiniMax offers its new text-to-video-generating tool as part of its consumer-facing Hailuo AI platform, which also provides AI text and music-generating features.

Beijing-based start-up Shengshu AI rolled out its text-to-video tool Vidu in July, with support for both Chinese- and English-language text prompts.Zhipu AI – a start-up valued at more than US$1 billion like its three AI “tiger” peers – in the same month launched its own Sora-like tool, which accepts both text and image prompts.

TikTok and Douyin owner ByteDance last month made its new Jimeng text-to-video app available for download on Apple’s mainland App Store, following its July 31 release on various local Android app stores. The desktop version was launched in May.Jimeng allows a user to create 80 images or 26 videos for free and charges a monthly subscription that costs at least 69 yuan (US$9.70) to generate more videos.

Alibaba Group Holding last month said it was working on a video-generating tool called Tora, based on the OpenSora foundational model. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

Hong Kong-listed short video app operator Kuaishou Technology last month started offering a monthly subscription plan for its Kling text-to-video service, which was launched in June. MiniMax counts Chinese Big Tech firms including Alibaba, Tencent Holdings and Genshin Impact creator miHoYo among its investors. Alibaba led a MiniMax funding round in March that valued the company at more than US$2 billion.

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