In the generative AI market, NTT launched its new domestic large language model (LLM) "tsuzumi2" on October 20. The launch of this product is intended to challenge the market currently dominated by overseas giants. Compared with competitor...
In the generative AI market, NTT launched its new domestic large language model (LLM) "tsuzumi2" on October 20. The launch of this product is intended to challenge the market currently dominated by overseas giants.
Compared with competitors' models with hundreds of billions of parameters, "tsuzumi2" only has 30 billion parameters, which is one-tenth the size of competitors. However, it can be run on a single GPU and shows lightweight characteristics.
NTT President Akira Shimada said at a press conference that the design focuses on the balance between economic efficiency and performance, and emphasizes the potential for enterprise use, especially in the context of increasing emphasis on economic security. Compared with competitors that require 8 to 16 GPUs, "tsuzumi2" costs only about 5 million yen, making it a viable option for enterprise private servers to run AI.
NTT launched the first generation "tsuzumi" as early as March 2024. At that time, the number of parameters was 7 billion, and it was upgraded according to user needs. Shingo Kinoshita of the Research and Development Department pointed out that the selection of 30 billion parameters is based on the improvement of current GPU performance, which allows a single GPU to handle more parameters.
In addition, NTT has 40 years of accumulation in Japanese language research, which enables "tsuzumi2" to better understand Japanese culture and customs, thereby finding differentiation in competition with large overseas models. President Shimada emphasized that NTT will not compromise on basic research and hopes to establish its own competitive advantage.
However, whether this small model can succeed in the market is still the focus of the industry. Industry experts pointed out that the success of “tsuzumi2” will depend on economic security and enterprise usage potential, as well as market advantages.
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