Artificial Intelligence

Jan 2, 2026

Baidu's AI chip division, Kunlunxin, has confidentially filed for an IPO in Hong Kong. The company submitted its application on January 1, setting the stage for a spin-off while keeping Kunlunxin under Baidu's umbrella. According to Reuters, a recent financing round valued the company at around $3 billion. The final size of the offering hasn't been determined yet.

Kunlunxin started as an internal unit back in 2012 and has primarily supplied chips to Baidu. Over the past two years, though, the company has been expanding its customer base beyond its parent company.

The IPO comes as China accelerates efforts to develop homegrown semiconductor alternatives in response to US export restrictions. Kunlunxin isn't alone in eyeing Hong Kong—other Chinese AI and chip companies, including MiniMax, Biren Technology, and OmniVision, are also pursuing listings on the exchange.

Comment Source: Reuters

Matthias Bastian

Jan 2, 2026

AI research

Science Context Protocol aims to let AI agents collaborate across labs and institutions worldwide

Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol has become the standard for AI data connections. Now researchers from Shanghai want to adapt the concept for science: their Science Context Protocol aims to connect AI agents, lab robots, and databases across institutional boundaries.

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Matthias Bastian

Jan 2, 2026

Short News

OpenAI has reportedly shifted production of its first AI hardware device from Luxshare to Foxconn. The company wants to avoid manufacturing in China, according to Taiwanese business newspaper Economic Daily News, citing supply chain sources. Instead, production will happen in Vietnam or the US.

The device is still in the design phase and could turn out to be a smart pen or portable audio gadget. It's expected to have a microphone and camera, letting users transfer handwritten notes directly to ChatGPT. The company is aiming for a launch in 2026 or 2027, and according to the newspaper, Foxconn would handle all OpenAI orders, from cloud infrastructure to consumer devices. OpenAI is calling the project "Gumdrop" internally.

The Financial Times reported on technical problems with the project back in October, including software bugs, privacy issues, and missing cloud infrastructure.

Comment Source: Economic Daily News

Matthias Bastian

Jan 1, 2026

Short News

OpenAI is building its planned ChatGPT hardware around conversation. To make that work, the company is pouring resources into improving its audio AI models, according to The Information. Over the past two months, OpenAI has combined several internal teams to focus on audio.

Right now, OpenAI's audio models can't match the accuracy and response speed of their text-based counterparts, according to current and former employees. A new audio model architecture in development aims to sound more natural and emotional, deliver more accurate answers, and handle real-time back-and-forth conversation. OpenAI is targeting a release in the first quarter of 2026. Kundan Kumar, a researcher the company recruited from Character.AI, is leading the effort.

The actual devices are likely a long way off. OpenAI is reportedly working on several products, including glasses and a smart speaker without a screen. Last year, the company acquired io, the startup cofounded by former Apple designer Jony Ive, for nearly $6.5 billion to help with development. The goal behind all this hardware is to build a "super AI assistant" that becomes as central to daily life as the smartphone.

Comment Source: The Information

Matthias Bastian

Jan 1, 2026

AI research

LLMs could serve as world models for training AI agents, study finds

Matthias Bastian

Jan 1, 2026

Short News

Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI, the company behind the Kimi chatbot, has closed a $500 million Series C funding round. The deal values the company at $4.3 billion, according to an exclusive report from LatePost. IDG led the round with $150 million, while existing investors including Alibaba, Tencent, and Wang Huiwen also participated.

CEO Yang Zhilin said in an internal letter that the company now holds more than $1.4 billion in cash. The funds will go toward expanding computing capacity and developing the K3 model. An insider says this cushion means Moonshot AI isn't rushing to go public, unlike Zhipu and MiniMax, two other Chinese AI startups pushing for IPOs. In September, Moonshot AI launched its "OK Computer" agent feature and a subscription model. According to Yang, paying users are growing 170 percent month over month.

This year, Moonshot AI made waves with its Kimi-K2-Thinking model, an open-source reasoning model that held its own against proprietary competitors.

Comment Source: LatePost

Matthias Bastian

Jan 1, 2026

AI and society

Instagram CEO argues humans must override their instinct to trust what they see online

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri says AI will make authenticity infinitely reproducible, and skepticism must become the default. His warning echoes what deepfake co-inventor Ian Goodfellow predicted eight years ago.

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Matthias Bastian

Jan 1, 2026

Short News

Brian Groh, a copywriter from Indiana, asked a chatbot for career advice after losing his job to AI and outsourcing. It suggested cutting trees. Groh's story, shared in a New York Times guest article, shows how AI is reshaping white-collar work. Marketing departments first hired cheaper contractors overseas, then turned to AI tools that could produce usable copy in seconds. Groh himself had previously replaced a transcription worker with AI, he writes. The 52-year-old took the chatbot's advice and initially earned decent money doing tree work, but the physical labor left him with elbow and back injuries.

I hope I’ll be able to get back to cutting trees for longer hours. But I suspect I’ll soon face increasing competition, as many people — especially recent college graduates — look for ways to make money that A.I. can’t yet replace.

Groh sees the same pattern that drove his working-class neighbors into despair after factory jobs disappeared. What once affected factory workers is now hitting office workers, he warns. Washington remains focused on global competition and growth, as if new work will always appear to replace what's been lost.

Comment Source: New York Times

Matthias Bastian

Dec 31, 2025

Short News

Alibaba has released Qwen-Image-2512, an update to its text-to-image model. The company says the new version does a better job generating realistic images of people, with finer facial detail and less of the artificial look that plagued earlier versions.

The updated image model aims to eliminate the "plastic" look of its predecessor. | Image: Qwen

The display of text in images, for example, in infographics or presentations, has also been improved. Landscapes, animal fur, and other natural elements also come out with finer detail.

The new Qwen model handles text in images better than before. | Image: Qwen

In over 10,000 blind tests on Alibaba's AI Arena platform, Qwen-Image-2512 came in fourth overall, making it the top-ranked open-source model, according to Alibaba. It's up against other open models like HunyuanImage-3.0, Z-image, and Flux.2.

Qwen-Image-2512 is available on Hugging Face and ModelScope, and you can try it out through Qwen Chat. More details are in the Tech Report and on the blog.

Comment Source: Hugging Face / Qwen-Image-2512 | ModelScope / Qwen-Image-2512 | Qwen Chat / Demo | Qwen / Tech Report | Qwen / Blog

Matthias Bastian

Dec 31, 2025

Short News

OpenAI is handing out stock-based compensation averaging $1.5 million per employee, about 34 times what major tech companies typically paid before going public. According to financial data shown to investors and reported by the Wall Street Journal, the company's roughly 4,000 employees are getting more than any tech startup has ever offered. That's also more than seven times what Google paid back in 2003.

Share-based compensation as a percentage of annual revenue

Company	Share of turnover
OpenAI	46,2 %
Palantir	32,6 %
Alphabet (Google)	14,6 %
Meta (Facebook)	5,9 %
Average (18 tech companies)	~6 %

Sources: Wall Street Journal, Equilar analysis. All figures refer to the year before each company's IPO, except OpenAI, which uses 2025 projections.

The generous pay is meant to keep OpenAI ahead in the AI race, but it's also pushing up losses. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has turned up the pressure by offering top employees packages worth hundreds of millions of dollars and poaching more than 20 OpenAI staffers. OpenAI expects its compensation costs to climb by $3 billion annually through 2030.

Comment Source: Wall Street Journal