Kuaishou, one of the main rivals to TikTok’s China sibling Douyin, showcased several fresh features for its text-to-video model Kling AI at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai last week, including the ability to generate videos up to 10 seconds. 

At WAIC, visitors queued to experience the Sora-like tool that is currently available by invitation only. Users sent simple prompts to generate videos, such as “a panda eating salmon” and “the Mona Lisa putting her glasses on with her hands”, with the resulting clips demonstrating Kling AI’s ability to render the inputs almost perfectly.

AI-generated videos have subsequently flooded the Chinese internet, with Kling AI being used to create clips featuring characters from historical films undertaking modern day tasks and spawning multiple memes.  

A video featuring Rong momo, a character from “My Fair Princess” who has become a well-known internet meme in China, feeding Princess Ziwei a chicken drumstick has gone viral on social platforms these days. The AI-generated video is based on the drama’s most famous scene in which Rong momo tortures Ziwei by repeatedly stabbing her with a needle.

Why it matters: Kuaishou will be hoping that its suite of self-developed large model series, including language model KwaiYii, image-focused Kolors, and video-centered Kling, will give it an edge as it continues to challenge to ByteDance’s Douyin and TikTok.

Details: More than 500,000 users have applied to help beta test Kling, senior vice president of Kuaishou Gai Kun revealed last weekend at a WAIC forum, with the number of videos generated reaching 7 million as of now. The Sora rival’s hype is such that English language posts teaching users outside of China how to apply for a Kling AI trial can be found on X, formerly known as Twitter.

• Kuaishou provided practical tips on the screen at the WAIC event, including advising users to use simple words and sentence structures and to avoid overly complex language. It also emphasized that its model is not sensitive to numbers, giving an example that if the prompt is “10 puppies on the beach,” the number might not be consistently maintained in its outputs.
• A member of staff from Kuaishou’s large language model team told TechNode that they were not at liberty to disclose the data used to train Kling AI, but indicated that it was open source.
• The TikTok rival meanwhile announced at WAIC that its Midjourney-like model Kolors would become open source, a move which Kuaishou said aims to contribute to a more prosperous ecosystem for the text-to-image generation community.
• Kuaishou’s investment in research and development has quadrupled over four years, with expenditure increasing from RMB 2.9 billion in 2019 to RMB 12.3 billion in 2023.

Context: Kuaishou, China’s second-largest short video company, launched its AI strategy in 2023, according to CEO Cheng Yixiao, who said that generative AI has a “very rich combination of business scenarios and huge value potential” for the content platform.

Editor’s note: ‘Landing AI’ is a series of special reports focusing on the field of Artificial Intelligence curated by TechNode. By investigating the development of AI landing in China and the behind-the-scenes stories of the industry, we’re going to dive deeper into everything that’s possible under the new wave of AI.