Tencent Releases Turbo AI Model It Says Is Faster Than DeepSeek
The Hunyuan Turbo S artificial intelligence model, released on Thursday, is designed to respond as instantly as possible, distinguishing itself from the deep reasoning approach of DeepSeek's eponymous chatbot, Tencent said. The deployment cost of Turbo S has also been greatly reduced, the company added.
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CNBC
17 minutes ago
- CNBC
OpenAI's Altman warns the U.S. is underestimating China's next-gen AI threat
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned that the U.S. may be underestimating the complexity and seriousness of China's progress in artificial intelligence, and said export controls alone likely aren't a reliable solution. "I'm worried about China," he said. Over Mediterranean tapas in San Francisco's Presidio — just five miles north of OpenAI's original office in the Mission — Altman offered a rare on-the-record briefing to a small group of reporters, including CNBC. He warned that the U.S.–China AI race is deeply entangled — and more consequential than a simple who's-ahead scoreboard. "There's inference capacity, where China probably can build faster. There's research, there's product; a lot of layers to the whole thing," he said. "I don't think it'll be as simple as: Is the U.S. or China ahead?" Despite escalating U.S. export controls on semiconductors, Altman is unconvinced that the policy is keeping up with technical reality. Asked whether it would be reassuring if fewer GPUs were reaching China, Altman was skeptical. "My instinct is that doesn't work," he said. "You can export-control one thing, but maybe not the right thing… maybe people build fabs or find other workarounds," he added, referring to semiconductor fabrication facilities, the specialized factories that produce the chips powering everything from smartphones to large-scale AI systems. "I'd love an easy solution," added Altman. "But my instinct is: That's hard." His comments come as Washington adjusts its policies designed to curb China's AI ambitions. The Biden administration initially tightened export controls, but in April, President Donald Trump went further — halting the supply of advanced chips altogether, including models previously designed to comply with Biden-era rules. Last week, however, the U.S. carved out an exception for certain "China-safe" chips, allowing sales to resume under a controversial and unprecedented agreement requiring Nvidia and AMD to give the federal government 15% of their China chip revenue. The result is a patchwork regime that may be easier to navigate than enforce. And while U.S. firms deepen their dependence on chips from Nvidia and AMD, Chinese companies are pushing ahead with alternatives from Huawei and other domestic suppliers — raising questions about whether cutting off supply is having the intended effect. China's AI progress has also influenced how OpenAI thinks about releasing its own models. While the company has long resisted calls to make its technology fully open source, Altman said competition from Chinese models — particularly open-source systems like DeepSeek — was a factor in OpenAI's recent decision to release its own open-weight models. "It was clear that if we didn't do it, the world was gonna head to be mostly built on Chinese open source models," Altman said. "That was a factor in our decision, for sure. Wasn't the only one, but that loomed large." Earlier this month, OpenAI released two open-weight language models — its first since GPT-2 in 2019 — marking a significant shift in strategy for the company that has long kept its technology gated behind application programming interfaces, or APIs. The new text-only models, called gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b, are designed as lower-cost options that developers, researchers, and companies can download, run locally, and customize. An AI model is considered open weight if its parameters — the values learned during training that determine how the model generates responses — are publicly available. While that offers transparency and control, it's not the same as open source. OpenAI is still not releasing its training data or full source code. With this release, OpenAI joins that wave and, for now, stands alone as the only major U.S. foundation model company actively leaning into a more open approach. While Meta had embraced openness with its Llama models, CEO Mark Zuckerberg suggested on the company's second-quarter earnings call it may pull back on that strategy going forward. OpenAI, meanwhile, is moving in the opposite direction, betting that broader accessibility will help grow its developer ecosystem and strengthen its position against Chinese rivals. Altman had previously acknowledged that OpenAI had been "on the wrong side of history" by locking up its models. Ultimately, OpenAI's move shows it wants to keep developers engaged and within its ecosystem. That push comes as Meta reconsiders its open-source stance and Chinese labs flood the market with models designed to be flexible and widely adopted. Still, the open-weight debut has drawn mixed reviews. Some developers have called the models underwhelming, noting that many of the capabilities that make OpenAI's commercial offerings so powerful were stripped out. Altman didn't dispute that, saying the team intentionally optimized for one core use case: locally-run coding agents. "If the kind of demand shifts in the world," he said, "you can push it to something else." Watch: OpenAI's enterprise bet pays off as startups in Silicon Valley switch to GPT-5
New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warns of AI bubble, says investors are ‘overexcited': report
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned that the billions of dollars being plowed into the artificial intelligence arms race risks causing a bubble comparable to the dot-com crash of the early 2000s. 'When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth,' Altman said during a dinner with a group of journalists, The Verge reported on Friday. 'Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes. Is AI the most important thing to happen in a very long time? My opinion is also yes.' Advertisement 4 OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testifies before a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. AP Altman likened the AI funding rush to 'the tech bubble,' when investors 'got overexcited' about internet-based companies in the late 1990s. Between March 2000 and October 2002, the Nasdaq lost nearly 80% of its value after many of these online companies failed to turn a profit. Advertisement In a report released last month, Torsten Slok, head economist at Apollo Global Management, argued that the AI bubble is actually bigger than the internet bubble, with the top 10 companies in the S&P 500 more overvalued than they were in the late 1990s. Ray Wang, research director for semiconductors, supply chain and emerging technology at Futurum Group, took a more optimistic stance. 'From the perspective of broader investment in AI and semiconductors… I don't see it as a bubble. The fundamentals across the supply chain remain strong, and the long-term trajectory of the AI trend supports continued investment,' he told CNBC in a statement. However, there is a high amount of speculative capital being thrown at companies who only have perceived potential – which could lead to pockets of overvaluation, Wang added. Advertisement 4 OpenAI chief Sam Altman likened the AI funding rush to the internet bubble of the early 2000s. REUTERS 'Calling it a bubble is too simplistic. What we're really seeing is a supply chain bottleneck – too much capital with real need, chasing too little compute,' Kyle Okamoto, chief technology officer at Aethir, a decentralized cloud GPU network, told The Post on Monday. 'Until infrastructure catches up, prices and hype will stay inflated, but that's not a bubble bursting – that's a market maturing.' Fears that the US might be in an AI bubble grew earlier this year after the explosive rise of DeepSeek, a Chinese tech firm that claimed to make a competitive AI model with a fraction of the time and money it took American rivals. Advertisement DeepSeek said its AI chatbot had been trained for under $6 million, far below the billions spent by US counterparts. OpenAI is on track to pass $20 billion in annual recurring revenue but it remains unprofitable, Altman said earlier this month. 4 OpenAI is on track to pass $20 billion in annual recurring revenue, but it remains unprofitable, according to Altman. AFP via Getty Images Its recent launch of ChatGPT-5 was so disappointing that customer complaints pushed the company to go back to the drawing board while reverting to the GPT-4 model. During the dinner with reporters, Altman said the term artificial general intelligence, or 'AGI,' is losing its relevance. AGI refers to a form of AI that can perform any intellectual task that a human can – which Altman previously said could be achieved in the 'reasonably close-ish future.' Altman's startup continues to draw in big investments. In March, OpenAI raised $40 billion at a $300 billion valuation – far above the largest amount ever raised by a tech company. Advertisement It now is preparing to sell around $6 billion in stock at roughly a $500 billion valuation. 4 Sam Altman jabbed at rival Elon Musk's Grok chatbot. REUTERS Altman said that he expects OpenAI to spend trillions of dollars on data center expansions. He has also expressed interest in buying Chrome if the US government forces Google to sell off the web browser as part of an antitrust case. Advertisement Separately, Altman confirmed reports that OpenAI is planning to launch a brain-computer interface startup similar to Elon Musk's Neuralink – and took a jab at his rival's firm xAI. 'You will definitely see some companies go make Japanese anime sex bots because they think that they've identified something here that works,' Altman said in a dig at Musk's Grok chatbot. 'You will not see us do that. We will continue to work hard at making a useful app, and we will try to let users use it the way they want, but not so much that people who have really fragile mental states get exploited accidentally.'
New York Post
8 hours ago
- New York Post
Top tech leaders battling for AI supremacy — while spending billions and slinging mud along the way
Call it the ultimate science fair competition, but this one's in a UFC octagon. The smartest and most competitive people in the world – including Elon Musk and Sam Altman – are competing in a gloves-off battle for AI supremacy. Legal threats, employee poaching, social-media mudslinging and shake ups by a dark-horse contender from the other side of the Earth are not off limits in this match. Advertisement Collateral damage comes with the territory. In the latest salvo this week, Musk threatened to sue Apple for antitrust violations over alleged favoritism toward Sam Altman's OpenAI, which it has a partnership with. Altman and Apple both denied this. Altman shot back with an accusation of his own, alleging Musk 'manipulate[s] X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn't like.' Musk described the post as 'bull—t' and called Altman a 'liar' and their bickering continued online into the evening. 13 Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, took to social media and accused Elon Musk of 'manipulat[ing] X to benefit himself.' AP Advertisement 13 A graphic showing the top AI leaders vying for the top place in the market. All of this is from rich, brilliant guys creating high tech innovations that promise to transform the world. But, then, perhaps that is the driving force behind all the aggravation in their bids for global domination. 'He who controls AI systems can have enormous power to shape people's opinions,' Gary Marcus, well-known AI skeptic and New York University professor emeritus, told The Post. Advertisement 'It's about power; giving them control of a lot of information is a kind of power. They [each] want to be able to dictate how the world goes.' Altman and Musk are not alone. Also competing in the battle-for-influence – perhaps going at it just as aggressively, but with a softer touch: Microsoft bolstered by a battalion of users, Mark Zuckerberg and his money-bagged Meta, Apple with hardware that the world loves, and Google sporting its ubiquitous search capabilities. Coming out of China and making waves is the AI effort DeepSeek, the brainchild of Liang Wenfeng, who also cofounded the hedge fund High-Flyer. DeepSeek shook up the AI world, in part, because it was developed for less than $6 million, compared with the hundreds of millions sunk into AI by US companies. 13 Elon Musk called Sam Altman 'a liar.' Getty Images Advertisement 13 Elon Musk is hoping to make Grok into the dominant option for people who use AI. AFP via Getty Images 13 Sam Altman's ChatGPT is said to me the AI front runner. Getty Images 13 Liang Wenfeng not only launched a hedge fund, but he also devised DeepSeek, an AI developed for a fraction of what competitors cost. VCG via Getty Images Each entity has its own strengths in this battle. Arguably leading the race is OpenAI, which was first to market with its Chat GPT product, which has become the go-to AI for most. 'ChatGPT has really broken away from the pack,' Tony Wang, a T. Rowe Price portfolio manager, said Thursday on CNBC's Squawk Box. 'In terms of consumer engagement, ChatGPT is off the charts here.' Musk was a founding partner in OpenAI and left under stormy conditions that derived from his wanting it to be free and open source. That happened in 2018, one year before Microsoft began investing in OpenAI; over the years, it has put in close to $14 billion. 13 Mark Zuckerberg, standing alongside his wife Priscilla Chan, heads up Meta, which was said to pay $100 million salaries for top AI researchers. A Meta exec called Sam Altman 'dishonest' for putting that out there. FilmMagic 13 With its Meta AI easilly accessed on Facebook and Instagram, Meta is on the running for REUTERS Advertisement 13 Faiz Siddiqui, author of 'Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk,' figures that his book subject 'still craves recognition.' Faiz Siddiqui/ X Last year Musk sued Altman and OpenAI for moving away from the company's original mission. In April OpenAI countersued Musk claiming he was making 'harassing legal claims and a sham bid' that he alleged could have hurt the company. Musk asked for that claim to be dismissed. On Tuesday, US District judge Yvonne Gonzalez ruled that the countersuit will stand. A jury trial is scheduled for next year. Considering the bad blood, Faiz Siddiqui, author of the Musk biography 'Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk,' can see how Musk's search-engine built into X, Grok, coming behind ChatGPT would leave the richest man in the world vexed. 'There's history between Musk and Altman,' emphasized Siddiqui. 'Elon is building a sort of walled garden for himself. He has his own social media sites, his own chatbot and in some ways his own echo chamber that hypes up these things that he builds. But he still craves outside recognition.' Advertisement Over in Silicon Valley, one billionaire who appeared to be behind the pack recently appears to have woken up from the taken off his Metaverse goggles and realized he needed to take action. 13 Speaking figurativey, author Faiz Siddiqui claims that Elon Musk is 'building a walled garden.' Zuckerberg has been on a gargantuan spending spree to fuel his quest to achieve superintelligence aka Artificial General Intelligence, the point machines can match and replicate human brainpower. He has been aggressively offering previously unheard of employment packages, paying out more then $1 billion to build an all-star team. He's lured the former head of Apple's AI models team, Ruoming Pang, to join his Superintelligence Labs and put together a rumored $250 million pay package to lock in just one super-geek, Matt Deitke, who is – incredibly – just 24. Advertisement Altman claimed Zuckerberg was offering $100 million pay packages to poach his top guys, which a Meta exec called 'dishonest.' However, although no numbers were disclosed, a handful of AI sharpshooters made the move from OpenAI to Meta a week later. 13 Expert on AI and NYU professor emeritus, Gary Marcus is skeptical about artificial intelligence and not sure about who will get what they want out the battle for supremacy. Getty Images Meta says it is spending $72 billion this year up from $42 billion last year to claw its way to the top of the AI chain. That has included $14.8 billion to acquire 49% of ScaleAI, making 28-year-old CEO Alexandr Wang and co-founder Lucy Guo, multi-billionaires overnight. Meanwhile, Google benefits from its ubiquity. With 8.5 billion searches daily, they have an unsurpassed data set to train its AI on from not just web searches, but the entire suite of software its offers. Advertisement The tech giant's Gemini gets dropped into searches whether people like it or not (never mind the disclaimer that 'all responses may include mistakes'). 13 Tim Cook, is the CEO of Apple, a company that could come from out of nowhere and win the battle for AL supremacy. Getty Images for Vox Media 'You have to look at Google with its search dominance,' said Siddiqui. In the midst of all this, Apple, helmed by Tim Cook, has been quiet, but should not be counted out. Tech insiders say Apple could pounce at any moment, putting out an AI driven hardware product which could instantly become part of our lives – iPhone style. 'Apple is the ecosystem provider,' Wang said on Squawk Box. 'As long as people aren't leaving the ecosystem' – Apple's App store generated $87 billion in revenue last year – 'it has a lot of optionality. They don't have to be first to market, and often they aren't, but they refine the product and deliver a really good experience.' 13 Alexander Wang, founder of Scale AI, sold a piece of his company to Meta for $14.3 billion. AP The high-stakes back and forth of this fracas, according to Marcus, may not yet be getting to the crux of the matter. 'The thing about this technology is that everybody has the same kind of formula right now,' he said, referring to the AI algorithms being used. 'So, it's difficult for anybody to get the decisive edge.' In fact, he is not so sure the technology out there will ultimately be what lasts. 'I think there's a lot of room for better ideas,' he added. 'AI is a capital-intensive field … [but] just throwing more money, more computing, more data is not really the magic formula. There is room for other discoveries.' Such as? 'The thing I keep coming to is neuro symbolic AI,' which is a form of artificial intelligence that gets souped up with computers modeled on the human brain. Although it's a race, Marcus doesn't think it necessarily will end the way the tech bros are acting like it will. 'Each of them is hoping to get to some artificial intelligence that everybody has to use,' meaning one model over all others. 'I'm not sure everything is going to work out the way they think,' he ominously claimed.
