AI in practice Archive

Jan 11, 2026

Leading figures in China's AI industry are tempering expectations: China won't overtake the US in the AI race anytime soon. Justin Lin, head of Alibaba's Qwen model series, puts the odds of a Chinese company surpassing OpenAI or Anthropic in the next three to five years at less than 20 percent. Tang Jie from Zhipu AI warned at the AGI Next Summit in Beijing that the gap with the US may actually be widening, though recent open-source releases suggest otherwise.

At the conference, executives cited limited computing capacity and US export controls on advanced chips as key hurdles. US infrastructure is one to two orders of magnitude larger, forcing Chinese companies to focus resources on current projects.

Yao Shunyu, a former OpenAI researcher and now Tencent's AI chief scientist, was more optimistic. He cited three to five years as a realistic timeframe for China to catch up but said the lack of advanced chipmaking machines was the main technical hurdle.

The cautious outlook follows a strong week on the stock market. Startups Zhipu AI and MiniMax Group together raised over one billion dollars in Hong Kong, with MiniMax shares doubling on their first day of trading.

Comment Source: Bloomberg | Reuters

Matthias Bastian

Jan 10, 2026

Short News

OpenAI is bringing in the team behind Convogo, an AI startup that built software for evaluating executives, as part of its broader cloud strategy. Founder Matt Cooper announced the news on LinkedIn. Convogo's software used AI to automatically analyze interviews, surveys, and psychometric tests.

According to OpenAI (via Techcrunch), the acquisition is about the people, not the product. The three founders, Matt Cooper, Evan Cater, and Mike Gillett, will help drive OpenAI's AI cloud efforts. The deal was settled entirely in shares, though the amount remains undisclosed. Convogo's software is being shut down.

The founding team's strong product focus likely made them attractive. Cooper writes that the key to closing the gap between AI's potential and its actual use lies in well-designed, purpose-driven applications, a "usage gap" narrative that Microsoft and OpenAI have both pushed before.

The acquisition also fits OpenAI's strategy of controlling the entire value chain, from infrastructure to models to the end product. This push likely reflects how differentiating on model capabilities alone is getting harder as performance converges and cheaper open-source alternatives catch up.

Comment Source: via LinkedIn | Techcrunch

Matthias Bastian

Jan 10, 2026

Short News

Last fall, OpenAI reportedly set aside a stock pool for employees worth about ten percent of the company. Based on the $500 billion valuation from October 2024, that comes to around $50 billion, according to The Information, citing two people familiar with the plans.

OpenAI has also already issued $80 billion in allocated shares. Combined with the new stock pool, employees now own about 26 percent of the company. Meanwhile, OpenAI is in early talks with investors about a new funding round worth roughly $750 billion.

A previous analysis found that OpenAI pays its employees more than any tech startup in history, with stock-based compensation averaging about $1.5 million per employee. That level of spending complicates the path to profitability: the company is targeting around $20 billion in ARR. But on top of hefty payroll, development costs, and day-to-day operations, OpenAI faces about $1.4 trillion in data center commitments over the next eight years.

Comment Source: The Information

Maximilian Schreiner

Jan 9, 2026

Short News

Epoch AI has released a comprehensive database of AI chip sales showing that global computing capacity now exceeds 15 million H100 equivalents. This metric compares the performance of various chips to Nvidia's H100 processor. The data, published on January 8, 2026, reveals that Nvidia's new B300 chip now generates the majority of the company's AI revenue, while the older H100 has dropped below ten percent. The analysis covers chips from Nvidia, Google, Amazon, AMD, and Huawei.

Epoch AI estimates this hardware collectively requires over 10 gigawatts of power - roughly twice what New York City consumes. The figures are based on financial reports and analyst estimates, since exact sales numbers are often not disclosed directly. The dataset is freely available and aims to bring transparency to computing capacity and energy consumption.

Comment Source: Epoch AI

Maximilian Schreiner

Jan 9, 2026

AI in practice

OpenAI launches healthcare product line, signs up major US hospitals

Matthias Bastian

Jan 8, 2026

Short News

In a glorious AI future, you'll order pizza directly from Excel. Microsoft and Stripe are teaming up to bring shopping to the AI assistant Copilot. US users will soon be able to buy products directly in the chat without ever leaving the app. At launch, the feature includes Etsy retailers and brands like Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie.

Called "Copilot Checkout," the feature runs on Stripe and uses the "Agentic Commerce Protocol," an open standard for AI-powered commerce that Stripe helped develop. ChatGPT already uses the same protocol with Stripe Checkout.

Meanwhile, Google is developing its own open protocol called "Agent Payments Protocol" (AP2), backed by more than 60 companies, including Mastercard, PayPal, Coinbase, and Adobe. Both OpenAI and Google have also announced partnerships with PayPal to enable payments directly in AI chats.

There's real money at stake here. If purchases happen through chatbots, the providers can take a cut of every transaction. OpenAI recently launched its own product research agent to position chatbots as a shopping channel. Copilot in Edge already offers AI-powered shopping tools in the US.

Comment Source: Stripe

Maximilian Schreiner

Jan 8, 2026

AI in practice

Google brings Gemini AI to Gmail with summaries, smart replies, and inbox prioritization

Maximilian Schreiner

Jan 8, 2026

Short News

Arm Holdings has restructured its business and created a unit called "Physical AI" to enter the robotics market. The British company, which licenses chip technology for smartphones and other devices, will operate three main business units in future: Cloud and AI, Edge (mobile devices and PCs) and Physical AI, which combines automotive and robotics.

Drew Henry will head the new unit. Arm plans to increase staff for robotics. According to marketing chief Ami Badani, the merger of automotive and robotics is due to similar customer requirements in terms of power consumption, safety and reliability. Robotics dominated CES 2026 with dozens of exhibitors of humanoid robots.

Comment Source: Reuters

Matthias Bastian

Jan 8, 2026

Update

AI in practice

China expected to approve Nvidia H200 imports this quarter after initial hesitation

The AI race between the US and China enters a new phase: Washington loosens Nvidia export rules, but Beijing reportedly halts purchases. China wants to shield its chip industry and may require buyers to also purchase domestic chips.

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Matthias Bastian

Jan 8, 2026

AI in practice

Tailwind's shattered business model is a grim warning for every business relying on site visits in the AI era

Tailwind CSS is one of the most successful open-source projects in web development. But while the framework is booming, revenue at the company behind it has dropped 80 percent. Founder Adam Wathan blames AI assistants. His story is a warning sign for large parts of the web.

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