Model training continues to hit new lows in terms of cost, a phenomenon known as the commoditization of AI that has rocked Wall Street. An AI reasoning model created for under $50 in cloud compute credits is reportedly performing comparably to established reasoning models such as OpenAI o1 and DeepSeek-R1 on tests of math and coding aptitude. Called s1-32B, it was created by researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington by customizing Alibaba’s Qwen2.5-32B-Instruct, feeding it 1,000 prompts with responses sourced from Google’s new Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental reasoning model. Continue reading Reasoning Model Competes with Advanced AI at a Lower Cost

Google has initiated a flurry of AI activity following the recent collection of Chinese AI releases. The Alphabet company has launched an experimental version of a new flagship AI model, Gemini 2.0 Pro. Its premiere coding and complex questions model is now available in Google AI Studio, Vertex AI and the Gemini Advanced app. The company has also made its general-purpose “workhorse” model, Gemini 2.0 Flash, available in general release via the Gemini API in AI Studio and Vertex. This follows last week’s announcement that Gemini 2.0 Flash is powering the Gemini app for desktop and mobile. Continue reading Google Adds Gemini Flash Thinking to Search, Maps and More

An internecine AI battle has erupted between Alibaba and DeepSeek. Days after DeepSeek dominated several news cycles with its affordable DeepSeek-R1 reasoning model and the multimodal Janus-Pro-7B, Alibaba released its latest LLM, Qwen 2.5-Max, available via API from Alibaba Cloud. As with DeepSeek, Alibaba is looking beyond its domestic borders, but the fact that a public-facing AI battle is heating up between Chinese companies indicates the People’s Republic isn’t going to quietly cede the AI race to the U.S. Alibaba claims Qwen 2.5-Max outperforms models from DeepSeek, Meta and OpenAI. Continue reading Alibaba Plans to Take On AI Competitors with Qwen2.5-Max

Less than a week after sending tremors through Silicon Valley and across the media landscape with an affordable large language model called DeepSeek-R1, the Chinese AI startup behind that technology has debuted another new product — the multimodal Janus-Pro-7B with an aptitude for image generation. Further mining the vein of efficiency that made R1 impressive to many, Janus-Pro-7B utilizes “a single, unified transformer architecture for processing.” Emphasizing “simplicity, high flexibility and effectiveness,” DeepSeek says Janus Pro is positioned to be a frontrunner among next-generation unified multimodal models. Continue reading DeepSeek Follows Its R1 LLM Debut with Multimodal Janus-Pro

Hangzhou-based AI firm DeepSeek is roiling the U.S. tech sector and upending financial markets. The startup has managed to become competitive with Silicon Valley’s deep learning firms despite U.S. sanctions that prevent Chinese technology companies from buying premium chips. DeepSeek has made it into the global top 10 in terms of model performance, and as of this week had the top-ranked free AI assistant at the Apple App Store. DeepSeek’s new R1 model has drawn attention for using less computing power than competing systems, while performing comparably, despite having been developed using older Nvidia chips. Continue reading Chinese AI Startup DeepSeek Disrupting the U.S. Tech Sector