On October 11, The "Scalable Intelligent Model Technology Joint Research Center (SIA Lab)," jointly established by the Institute for AI Industry Research (AIR) at Tsinghua University and ByteDance, held its inauguration ceremony at Tsinghua University. SIA Lab focuses on pre-trained large language model technologies and is committed to developing more general and scalable intelligent systems, enhancing the performance of intelligent technologies in internet applications and other scenarios involving more complex tasks.

Distinguished attendees at the inauguration ceremony included Tsinghua AIR President and Academician Zhang Yaqin, Liu Yiqun, Director of the Office of Scientific Research at Tsinghua University, Professor Ma Weiying, Chief Scientist of Tsinghua AIR, Professor Liu Yang, Executive Director of AIR, Qiao Mu, Head of ByteDance's Doubao Seed Team, Associate Professor Zhou Hao, Director of SIA Lab and Deputy Director of Tsinghua AIR, Jin Xiaowei, Head of ByteDance's Research Strategy and Academic Collaboration, and Wang Mingxuan, Senior Researcher of The ByteDance Doubao (Seed) Team and Co-Director of SIA Lab.

In recent years, artificial intelligence has witnessed explosive growth, with Pre-trained Language Model (PLM) emerging as a key pathway toward general intelligence. Global technology companies and research institutions are dedicating significant resources to PLM research. ByteDance has established the Doubao Seed Team to conduct ongoing research and investment in this field, aiming to develop industry-leading AI large model technologies and become a world-class research team. The jointly established SIA Lab aims to achieve foundational breakthroughs in large model technologies and build industrial applications through effective industry-academia-research collaboration.

Zhang Yaqin, President of Tsinghua AIR and Academician, expressed high hopes for the collaboration:

"AIR and ByteDance's joint research team shares deep mutual trust and a common belief in the development of artificial intelligence. We look forward to leveraging our respective strengths: AIR's research team will focus on foundational and cutting-edge technology exploration, while ByteDance will bring its industry advantages in user scenarios, data, computing power, and engineering. Together with the Doubao Seed research team, we aim to collaboratively drive advancements in AI large model technology."

Liu Yiqun, Director of the Office of Scientific Research at Tsinghua University, congratulated the establishment of the joint center:

"We are grateful for ByteDance's strong support for industry-academia-research collaboration. We look forward to the joint center team integrating cutting-edge intelligent technologies into industrial solutions to demonstrate the societal benefits of AI. At the same time, we hope that through deep collaboration, we can cultivate innovative and practical talent who will become leaders and key players in the future waves of intelligent technology development."

Qiao Mu, Head of ByteDance's Doubao Seed Team, also emphasized the importance of this partnership:

"Large language model technology has developed rapidly in recent years. However, whether it's further advancing the current scaling laws, enhancing the logical reasoning capabilities of models, or improving their learning and memory abilities, there is still much work to be done. We hope that both sides can fully leverage their respective strengths and, guided by a shared vision, work together to conduct valuable and meaningful long-term research."

After the signing ceremony, both parties engaged in in-depth technical discussions and explored various possibilities for future collaboration. SIA Lab will focus pragmatically on foundational technology research and foster further communication between academia and industry in China through events such as salons and seminars. The lab aims to promote open research collaboration in the field of artificial intelligence and contribute to the continuous advancement of related technologies.

About the Institute for AI Industry Research (AIR), Tsinghua University

The Institute for AI Industry Research, Tsinghua University (AIR, THU), is an international, intelligent, and industry-oriented research institute established to address the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. AIR’s mission is to leverage AI technologies to empower industrial upgrades and drive societal progress. By combining university innovation with corporate collaboration, AIR seeks to advance core AI technologies, cultivate leaders in the intelligent industry, and promote leapfrog development in the field.

AIR was founded in 2020 by Zhang Yaqin, a world-renowned scientist and entrepreneur in multimedia and artificial intelligence.

About ByteDance's Doubao Seed Team

Founded in 2023, ByteDance's Doubao Seed Team is dedicated to developing industry-leading AI large model technologies, aspiring to become a world-class research team and contribute to technological and societal progress.

The Doubao Seed Team has a long-term vision and commitment to AI, focusing on areas such as deep learning, reinforcement learning, large language models (LLMs), speech, vision, AI infrastructure, and AI safety. With labs in China, Singapore, and the United States, the team leverages abundant data and computational resources provided by the platform. It has already developed proprietary general-purpose large models offering multi-modal capabilities, supporting over 50 applications, including Doubao, Kouzi, and Jimeng, and provides enterprise services through the Volcano Engine platform.