OpenAI is available in most countries around the world, but not everywhere. It appears that these restrictions are often circumvented. And now the company has issued a warning: Starting July 9, OpenAI will obtain and ban serious accounts that attempt to access APIs from “unsupported countries and territories.”
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Users in the People's Republic of China (including Hong Kong) have received a corresponding circular, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP). The list of supported countries is long, but in addition to China, several other notable names are missing, including the Russian Federation and the territories it occupies in Ukraine, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela. The editorial team doesn't yet know if OpenAI has sent warnings there as well.
According to SCMP, there are not only individual users in China who can access OpenAI's AI services using virtual private networks (VPNs), but also companies running proxy servers abroad so they can use OpenAI's interfaces. These companies run third-party services using OpenAI, apparently because native large language models (LLMs) aren't (yet) that good. The provider no longer wants to tolerate this. Incidentally, payments from unsupported regions will also result in the account being suspended, even if it is accessed from elsewhere.
Competition between China
According to the newspaper's report, there are more than 200 companies in China that have established their own MBA programs. In addition to big Chinese tech companies like Baidu and TikTok operator Bytedance, several startups are also participating in the race for the best MBA in China. They are not being lazy and are attracting companies that may soon be separated from OpenAI by switching offers including credits and free training.
Apple is also looking for partners in China to showcase “Apple Intelligence,” an assistant (Siri) powered by AI services from OpenAI and Google. In China, Apple needs local partners to make this happen. On the one hand, the services of the two American companies are not available there, and on the other hand, they did not obtain a license from Beijing anyway. This is necessary before starting AI training.
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