(Yicai Global) June 5 -- Shares of firms related to artificial intelligence cloning services surged on Chinese mainland stock markets after Microsoft spinoff Xiaoice launched avatars that mimic celebrities.

Beijing Quanshi World Online Network Information [SHE: 002995] jumped by its 10 percent daily trading limit to close at CNY33.29 (USD4.68) a share today, while Guangzhou Frontop Digital Creative Technology [SHE: 301313] also gained by its limit, closing up 20 percent at CNY46.48 on Shenzhen’s ChiNext board.

Xiaoice announced plans to launch its GPT Clone Human Project in the Chinese and Japanese markets on May 6. The clones are based on the personality, skills, sounds, and appearance of stars as well as experts in various fields, and all that is needed is data that can be collected from them in as few as three minutes, the developer said, adding that it will provide a platform to enable human clients to offer their AI clones to followers with or without charge.

Celebrities who have hundreds of millions of followers have already signed up to create their own AI clones, Xiaoice said, citing backend system data. The first batch of AI clones will be limited to 300 out of safety considerations, it noted. The developer plans to release a new clone every Thursday, China National Radio reported online on June 1.

The underlying tech used in the process includes Xiaoice’s cross-lingual large language model as well as sound and neural network rendering technology, which enables the AI clones to have personalities and characteristics to some extent and the ability to finish tasks.

Beijing-based Xiaoice said it would not open the application programming interface, to avoid the risk of abuse with the clones. Also, their ability to interact with users is restricted to a specific app.

Xiaoice, an AI pioneer in the Chinese market, was spun off from Microsoft China in July 2020 and is developing AI and cloud computing industry solutions for the local market.

Editor: Tom Litting