The Sequence Radar #897: Last Week in AI: China, Compression and the Open-Model Race
Next Week in The Sequence:
TL;DR
- Thinking Machines released Inkling, a 975-billion-parameter open-weight model with a 1M context window, focusing on customization.
- Moonshot AI introduced Kimi K3, a 2.8 trillion-parameter model with open weights, aiming for long-horizon coding.
- PrismML's Bonsai 27B offers extreme compression, with a 5.9GB model small enough for smartphones.
- OpenAI's GPT-Red is an automated red-teaming system that uses self-play to find vulnerabilities, significantly improving model robustness.
- Xi Jinping framed open-source AI as a global public good, highlighting China's strategic push for AI governance and international cooperation.
- The trend indicates a fragmentation and potential democratization of AI, shifting the contest from building the smartest system to deciding whether intelligence will be centralized or portable.
- Apple Intelligence is approved for launch in China, integrating Alibaba's Qwen models.
- Emergent announced a $130 million Series C funding round.
- Demis Hassabis proposed an independent standards body for reviewing frontier models.
- Reflection AI secured a $1 billion+ compute deal with Nebius.
- Google's Gemini 3.5 Pro is reportedly behind schedule.
- Greylock launched an $1.5 billion early-stage fund.
- TSMC's revenue shows continued AI demand.
- Walden Robotics launched with significant seed funding.
- SK Hynix completed a record-breaking US listing.