Latest news with #XavierMartinet
Korea Herald
a day ago
- Automotive
- Korea Herald
Genesis to expand into Western Europe to tap luxury EV demand
Hyundai Motor Company, Korea's largest automaker, announced plans to expand its luxury brand Genesis into France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands with a lineup of electric models, accelerating its push into the European market, where traditional local luxury brands still dominate. The announcement was made on Friday during the 24 Hours of Le Mans — one of the world's largest motorsports events — with Hyundai Motor Group Chief Design Officer Luc Donckerwolke and Xavier Martinet, head of Hyundai Motor and Genesis' European operations, in attendance. Genesis is set to begin deliveries in the four new markets starting in early 2026. The initial lineup will include the electric sport utility vehicle GV60, the electrified version of the GV70 SUV and the upcoming GV80 electric coupe. Details regarding sales channels and strategies for each country have yet to be disclosed. 'Our entry into these important markets is a pivotal moment for Genesis. We are moving now to deepen our long-term presence and commitment across Europe,' said Martinet. 'This is the most significant market expansion since we launched in Europe in 2021 and is the start of our next phase of measured, strategic growth and sporting brand direction.' After entering Germany, the United Kingdom and Switzerland in 2021, Genesis is now expanding into all major electric vehicle markets in Western Europe. According to SNE Research, Europe accounted for 20.9 percent of global battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle sales between January and May, the largest share outside China, with 26.2 percent year-over-year growth during the period. Hyundai Motor Group has rapidly increased its presence in the region's EV market with compact, affordable models such as Kia's EV3 and Hyundai's Kona Electric and Casper Electric, achieving 45 percent year-over-year growth between January and April. However, the luxury EV segment continues to be led by established local brands like Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi, presenting recognition challenges for newer entrants like Genesis. Hyundai's expansion seeks to tap into potential openings as local automakers adjust the pace of electrification amid concerns over demand and profitability. The company expects the luxury EV segment to grow further, potentially comprising half of Western Europe's luxury car market by 2027 as new internal combustion engine vehicle sales are phased out by 2035. As part of efforts to showcase its technological capabilities, the brand plans to expand its presence in global motorsports through its Genesis Magma Racing team, established in late 2024. It aims to enter the Hypercar class of the International Automobile Federation's World Endurance Championship, one of the most prestigious endurance racing series in the world, next year.
Business Insider
26-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Meta's Llama AI team has been bleeding talent. Many top researchers have joined French AI startup Mistral.
Meta's open-source Llama models helped define the company's AI strategy. Yet the researchers who built the original version have mostly moved on. Of the 14 authors credited on the landmark 2023 paper that introduced Llama to the world, just three still work at Meta: research scientist Hugo Touvron, research engineer Xavier Martinet, and technical program leader Faisal Azhar. The rest have left the company, many of them to join or found its emerging rivals. Meta's brain drain is most visible at Mistral, the Paris-based startup co-founded by former Meta researchers Guillaume Lample and Timothée Lacroix, two of Llama's key architects. Alongside several fellow Meta alums, they're building powerful open-source models that directly compete with Meta's flagship AI efforts. The exits over time raise questions about Meta's ability to retain top AI talent just as it faces a new wave of external and internal pressure. The company is delaying its largest-ever AI model, Behemoth, after internal concerns about its performance and leadership, The Wall Street Journal reported. Llama 4, Meta's latest release, received a lukewarm reception from developers, many of whom now look to faster-moving open-source rivals like DeepSeek and Qwen for cutting-edge capabilities. Inside Meta, the research team has also seen a shake-up. Joelle Pineau, who led the company's Fundamental AI Research group (FAIR) for eight years, announced last month that she would step down. She will be replaced by Robert Fergus, who co-founded FAIR in 2014 and then spent five years at Google's DeepMind before rejoining Meta this month. The leadership reshuffle follows a period of quiet attrition. Many of the researchers behind Llama's initial success have left FAIR since publishing their landmark paper, even as Meta continues to position the model family as central to its AI strategy. With so many of its original architects gone and rivals moving faster in open-source innovation, Meta now faces the challenge of defending its early lead without the team that built it. That's particularly significant because the 2023 Llama paper was more than just a technical milestone. It helped legitimize open-weight large language models with underlying code and parameters that are freely available for others to use, modify, and build on, as viable alternatives to proprietary systems at the time, like OpenAI's GPT-3 and Google's PaLM. Meta trained its models using only publicly available data and optimized them for efficiency, enabling researchers and developers to run state-of-the-art systems on a single GPU chip. For a moment, Meta looked like it could lead the open frontier. Two years later, that lead has slipped, and Meta no longer sets the pace. Despite investing billions into AI, Meta still doesn't have a dedicated "reasoning" model, one built specifically to handle tasks that require multi-step thinking, problem-solving, or calling external tools to complete complex commands. That gap has grown more noticeable as other companies like Google and OpenAI prioritize these features in their latest models. The average tenure of the 11 departed authors at Meta was over five years, suggesting they weren't short-term hires but researchers deeply embedded in Meta's AI efforts. Some left as early as January 2023; others stayed through the Llama 3 cycle, and a few left as recently as this year. Together, their exits mark the quiet unraveling of the team that helped Meta stake its AI reputation on open models. A Meta spokesperson pointed to an X post about Llama research paper authors who have left. The list below, based on information from the researchers' LinkedIn profiles, shows where each of them ended up. Naman Goyal Left Meta: February 2025 Time at Meta: 6 years, 7 months Baptiste Rozière Current role: AI Scientist at Mistral Left Meta: August 2024 Time at Meta: 5 years, 1 month Aurélien Rodriguez Current role: Director, Foundation Model Training at Cohere Left Meta: July 2024 Time at Meta: 2 years, 7 months Eric Hambro Current role: Member of Technical Staff at Anthropic Left Meta: November 2023 Time at Meta: 3 years, 3 months Timothée Lacroix Left Meta: June 2023 Time at Meta: 8 years, 5 months Marie-Anne Lachaux Current role: Founding Member and AI Research Engineer at Mistral Left Meta: June 2023 Time at Meta: 5 years Thibaut Lavril Current role: AI Research Engineer at Mistral Left Meta: June 2023 Time at Meta: 4 years, 5 months Armand Joulin Current role: Distinguished Scientist at Google DeepMind Left Meta: May 2023 Time at Meta: 8 years, 8 months Gautier Izacard Current role: Technical Staff at Microsoft AI Left Meta: March 2023 Time at Meta: 3 years, 2 months Edouard Grave Current role: Research Scientist at Kyutai Left Meta: February 2023 Time at Meta: 7 years, 2 months Guillaume Lample Left Meta: Early 2023 Time at Meta: 7 years
