logo
China's tech firm Alibaba release AI model

China's tech firm Alibaba release AI model

Express Tribune30-01-2025

BEIJING:
Chinese tech company Alibaba on Wednesday released a new version of its Qwen 2.5 artificial intelligence (AI) model that it claimed surpassed the highly acclaimed DeepSeek-V3.
The unusual timing of the Qwen 2.5-Max's release, on the first day of the Lunar New Year when most Chinese people are off work and with their families, points to the pressure Chinese AI startup DeepSeek's meteoric rise in the past three weeks has placed on not just overseas rivals, but also its domestic competition.
"Qwen 2.5-Max outperforms almost across the board GPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3 and Llama-3.1-405B," Alibaba's cloud unit said in an announcement posted on its official WeChat account, referring to OpenAI and Meta's most advanced open-source AI models.
The January 10 release of DeepSeek's AI assistant, powered by the DeepSeek-V3 model, as well as the Jan 20 release of its R1 model, has shocked Silicon Valley and caused tech shares to plunge, with the Chinese startup's purportedly low development and usage costs prompting investors to question huge spending plans by leading AI firms in the United States.
But DeepSeek's success has also led to a scramble among its domestic competitors to upgrade their own AI models.
Two days after the release of DeepSeek-R1, TikTok owner ByteDance released an update to its flagship AI model, which it claimed outperformed Microsoft-backed OpenAI's o1 in AIME, a benchmark test that measures how well AI models understand and respond to complex instructions.
This echoed DeepSeek's claim that its R1 model rivalled OpenAI's o1 on several performance benchmarks.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

US and China hold trade talks in London to ease tensions
US and China hold trade talks in London to ease tensions

Express Tribune

time2 hours ago

  • Express Tribune

US and China hold trade talks in London to ease tensions

London talks follow first public call between Trump and Xi since his return to the White House, held just days earlier. PHOTO: REUTERS Listen to article Top US and Chinese officials were meeting in London on Monday to try and defuse a high-stakes trade dispute that has widened from tariffs to restrictions over rare earths, threatening a global supply chain shock and slower economic growth. On the first of likely two days of talks, officials from the two superpowers were meeting at the ornate Lancaster House to try to get back on track with a preliminary agreement struck last month in Geneva that had briefly lowered the temperature between Washington and Beijing. Since then the US has accused China of slow-walking on its commitments, particularly around rare earths shipments. White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on Monday that the US team wanted a handshake from China on rare earths after Donald Trump said Xi Jinping had agreed to resume shipments in a rare call between the two presidents last week. "The purpose of the meeting today is to make sure that they're serious, but to literally get handshakes," Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told CNBC in an interview. He said the U.S. would expect export controls to be eased and rare earths released in volume immediately afterwards. The talks come at a crucial time for both economies, which are showing signs of strain from Trump's cascade of tariff orders since his return to the White House in January. Customs data showed that China's exports to the US plunged 34.5% year-on-year in May in value terms, the sharpest drop since February 2020, when the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic upended global trade. In the US, business and household confidence has taken a pummelling, while first-quarter gross domestic product contracted due to a record surge in imports as Americans front-loaded purchases to beat anticipated price increases. But for now, the impact on inflation has been muted, and the jobs market has remained fairly resilient, though economists expect cracks to become more apparent over the summer. Attending the talks in London will be US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and a Chinese contingent helmed by Vice Premier He Lifeng. The inclusion of Lutnick, whose agency oversees export controls for the US, is one indication of how central rare earths have become. China holds a near-monopoly on rare earth magnets, a crucial component in electric vehicle motors. Lutnick did not attend the Geneva talks at which the countries struck a 90-day deal to roll back some of the triple-digit tariffs they had placed on each other. Positive collection The second round of meetings comes four days after Trump and Xi spoke by phone, their first direct interaction since Trump's January 20 inauguration. During the more than one-hour-long call, Xi told Trump to back down from trade measures that roiled the global economy and warned him against threatening steps on Taiwan, according to a Chinese government summary. But Trump said on social media the talks focused primarily on trade led to "a very positive conclusion," setting the stage for Monday's meeting in the British capital. The next day, Trump said Xi had agreed to resume shipments to the US of rare earths minerals and magnets, and Reuters reported that China has granted temporary export licenses to rare-earth suppliers of the top three US automakers. China's decision in April to suspend exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets upended the supply chains central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told the Fox News program "Sunday Morning Futures" that the U.S. wanted the two sides to build on the progress made in Geneva in the hope they could move towards more comprehensive trade talks. The preliminary deal in Geneva sparked a global relief rally in stock markets, and U.S. indexes that had been in or near bear market levels have recouped the lion's share of their losses. But Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, said while a temporary truce was possible, there was little prospect for the bilateral relationship to become constructive given broader decoupling trends and continued US pressure on other countries to take China out of their supply chains. "Everyone around Trump is still hawkish and so a breakthrough US-China trade deal is unlikely, especially in the context of other deals that are further along and prioritized," he said in an analyst note.

US seeking ‘handshake' on rare earths from China, White House aide says
US seeking ‘handshake' on rare earths from China, White House aide says

Business Recorder

time5 hours ago

  • Business Recorder

US seeking ‘handshake' on rare earths from China, White House aide says

WASHINGTON: The three top U.S. trade negotiators are seeking a handshake with China in London talks to seal the agreement on rare earths reached by Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on Monday. 'The purpose of the meeting today is to make sure that they're serious, but to literally get handshakes,' Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told CNBC in an interview. 'I expect it to be a short meeting with a big, strong handshake,' Hassett added. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer were set to meet with Chinese counterparts in London on Monday to defuse the trade dispute between the two superpowers that has widened in recent weeks to include export controls over goods critical to global supply chains. US, China seek to extend trade truce with London talks Chinese export controls on rare earths was a very significant sticking point, Hassett said. With China controlling most of the global rare earth and magnet supply, its restrictions on sending those to the U.S. could disrupt production for American companies, including automakers, that rely on those materials, he said. Asked about the Chinese objection to U.S. curbs on semiconductor exports, Hassett said: 'Our expectation is that after the handshake, then immediately after the handshake, any export controls from the U.S. will be eased, and the rare earths will be released in volume, and then we can go back to negotiating smaller matters.'

Wall Street set to open higher as US-China trade talks begin
Wall Street set to open higher as US-China trade talks begin

Business Recorder

time6 hours ago

  • Business Recorder

Wall Street set to open higher as US-China trade talks begin

Wall Street's main indexes were set to open higher on Monday as investors watched a fresh round of negotiations between the United States and China aimed at mending a trade rift that has rattled financial markets for much of the year. Top officials from both countries have begun discussions at London's Lancaster House, a U.S. source said, as they look to address disagreements around a preliminary trade agreement struck last month that had briefly cooled tensions between the world's largest economies. The meetings come four days after U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke by phone, their first direct interaction since Trump's January 20 inauguration. The leaders had, however, left key issues unresolved for future talks. 'The talks will have to go on for some time before we decide whether or not there's actual progress being made, however, most investors remain hopeful that there will be some positive results,' said Peter Andersen, founder at Andersen Capital Management. White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told CNBC in an interview on Monday the U.S. trade negotiators are seeking a handshake in London to seal an agreement struck by Trump and Xi to allow the export of China's rare earth minerals and magnets to the United States. The benchmark S&P 500 closed above 6,000 on Friday for the first time since Feb. 21, following a better-than-expected jobs report and a rebound in Tesla's shares. Wall Street rises on jobs data optimism; Tesla rebounds Hopes of more trade deals between the U.S. and its major trading partners, along with upbeat earnings and tame inflation data, helped U.S. equities rally in May, with the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq notching their best monthly gains since November 2023. The S&P 500 remains a little over 2% below all-time highs touched in February, while the Nasdaq is about 3% below its record peaks reached in December. Citigroup joined major brokerages in raising its year-end target for the S&P 500, citing renewed optimism in corporate earnings resilience and the accelerating momentum of artificial intelligence-driven growth. It sees the benchmark ending the year at 6,300, compared with 5,800 forecast previously, according to a note late on Friday. Major data releases this week include readings on May consumer prices and initial jobless claims. While investors widely expect the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates unchanged next week, focus will be on any signs of pick-up in inflation as Trump's tariffs risk raising price pressures. Traders currently expect 46 basis points of rate cuts by the end of 2025 and are pricing in a 55% chance of a 25 bps cut in September, according to data compiled by LSEG. At 08:34 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 46 points, or 0.11%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 9.5 points, or 0.16%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 19.25 points, or 0.09%. Most megacap and growth stocks were mixed in premarket trading. Tesla shares fell 1.7% after a report said Baird downgraded the stock to 'neutral' from 'outperform'. Robinhood Markets fell 3.3% after the S&P 500 kept index constituents unchanged in its latest rebalancing, contrary to some analysts who had expected the online brokerage to join the benchmark index. Warner Bros Discovery shares jumped 8.6% after the company said it would separate its studios and streaming business from its fading cable television networks. Shares of Sunnova Energy slumped 28.4% after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store