4 d. ago Ant Group acquires stake in Chinese memory chip firm InnoStar

A subsidiary of Ant Group has acquired a minority stake in memory chip developer InnoStar Semiconductor, signalling continued Chinese efforts to support domestic suppliers and reduce reliance on imported semiconductors. Shanghai Yunya Enterprise Management Consulting, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ant Group, recently snapped up a 1.87 per cent shareholding in InnoStar for an undisclosed amount, according to registry records in late August from corporate information provider Aiqicha. InnoStar had...

Politics

4 d. ago Chinese delivery giant Meituan releases AI model to take on Alibaba, DeepSeek

On-demand local services giant Meituan has become the latest Chinese Big Tech company to release an open-source large language model (LLM) to market, more than two years after it acquired mainland AI start-up Light Year for US$281 million. Beijing-based Meituan, the long-standing leader of China’s food delivery market, on Monday released and open-sourced its own LLM, called LongCat-Flash-Chat, via artificial intelligence developer platforms Hugging Face and GitHub, as well as the model’s...

Politics

1 week ago DeepSeek’s V3.1 model emerges as ‘key pillar’ for China’s chip self

DeepSeek’s recently released V3.1 AI model has unleashed fresh optimism about the prospects of mainland China developing advanced artificial intelligence semiconductors, according to analysts. The Hangzhou-based start-up’s updated model, which supports the innovative data format called UE8M0 FP8, was “ushering in a booming domestic computing power chain”, Huatai Securities analysts said in a research note on Tuesday. That architecture showed that the synergy between mainland-designed software...

Politics

2 w. ago DeepSeek’s ‘UE8M0 FP8’ innovation seen as boost for China’s AI self

A technical change in the latest model from Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek could be a big step towards achieving China’s goal of AI self-sufficiency, as it shows a new level of coordination between local model developers and hardware makers, according to analysts and industry insiders. This week, the Hangzhou-based AI lab said its new V3.1 model was trained using a UE8M0 FP8 scale data format, which was suitable for the “home-grown chips soon to be released”. While DeepSeek...

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2 w. ago DeepSeek’s upgraded AI model absorbs reasoning feature in agentic shift

Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek said on Thursday that its newly released V3.1 model supported both “think” and “non-think” modes, marking the firm’s “first step towards the agent era” – a shift that suggests a change in its research focus and and the possibility it would forgo the highly anticipated R2 reasoning model. The “think” mode on DeepSeek’s namesake chatbot was previously powered by its R1 reasoning model that garnered global attention after its release in January,...

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2 w. ago Chinese AI startup DeepSeek releases upgraded model with domestic chip support

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek releases upgraded model with domestic chip support  Reuters

Politics

2 w. ago DeepSeek’s V3.1 update sparks speculation over fate of next AI model

Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek has updated its foundational V3 model and removed references to its reasoning model R1 from its chatbot, prompting speculation about a shift in the company’s research focus. DeepSeek announced on Tuesday the release of the V3.1 model in a brief message to one of its WeChat user groups. The update expands the context window to 128k, allowing the model to hold more information – equivalent to a roughly 300-page book – during user interactions. The...

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2 w. ago China’s DeepSeek Releases V3.1, Boosting AI Model’s Capabilities

China’s DeepSeek Releases V3.1, Boosting AI Model’s Capabilities  Bloomberg.com

Politics

2 w. ago Tesla’s revamped Model Y aimed at regaining mainland market share from rivals

Tesla China has priced its six-seat Model Y variant about 30 per cent higher than its basic edition and has started accepting orders from customers who prefer spacious, long-range electric vehicles (EVs) for family use. The US carmaker announced on Tuesday that the upgraded version of the Model Y would sport a price tag of 339,000 yuan (US$47,182), compared with 263,500 yuan for the entry-level edition currently. The three-row SUV with a driving range of 751km is 25,500 yuan, or 8 per cent, more...

Economics

3 w. ago Speculation grows on DeepSeek’s next AI model after OpenAI’s GPT

China’s leading artificial intelligence start-up, DeepSeek, finds itself at the centre of speculation about the release of its next-generation R2 reasoning model, following OpenAI’s launch of its GPT-5 model last week. DeepSeek – which made waves in the industry with its V3 model in December and the R1 model in January – has not introduced major updates to its products in the past months, aside from two minor revisions. While the market had expected DeepSeek to introduce a new foundation model...

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