Alibaba’s New AI Model

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Alibaba’s New AI Model

The cloud division of the Chinese tech giant [BABA] on Thursday unveiled Qwen2.5, a new version of its proprietary large language model, Tongyi Qianwen. It has “remarkable advancements in reasoning, code comprehension and textual understanding compared to its predecessor” the company said. Some 2.2 million corporate users have accessed artificial intelligence (AI) services powered by Qwen via the DingTalk platform.

DeepMind AI Breakthrough

Alphabet’s [GOOGL] Google DeepMind lab has unveiled a new AI system called AlphaFold 3, developed in partnership with its drug discovery spin-off, Isomorphic Labs. “Biology is a dynamic system and you have to understand how properties of biology emerge through the interaction between different molecules in the cells,” Sir Demis Hassabis, CEO and Co-founder of DeepMind, told the Financial Times. “And you can think of AlphaFold 3 as our first big step towards that.”

Cautious Arm Falls

The UK-based, US-listed chip designer’s [ARM] share price fell 8.7% Thursday morning after an underwhelming revenue forecast for the fiscal year. The company predicted revenue of between $3.8bn and $4.1bn, versus analyst consensus of $3.99bn. “I wanted to make sure we set a target that ties to what we have high confidence in, to what we can deliver,” Chief Financial Officer Jason Child told Reuters in an interview.

Chinese EV Brands Turn to Affordable Lines

Leading Chinese electric vehicle firm Nio [NIO] has said it will release its lower-priced brand, called Onvo, on 15 May. The company said its first model, the L60, will be a “family-centric smart [battery EV] priced around RMB250,000, in the same segment as Tesla Model Y”. Rival XPeng [XPEV], meanwhile, has announced it is to release its own more affordable sub-brand, called Mona, in two or three months’ time.

Fusion and Fission in Streaming

The New York Times reported that two entertainment titans — Disney [DIS] and Warner Bros Discovery [WBD] — are to bundle their Disney+, Hulu and Max channels this summer. Elsewhere, Sony Pictures Entertainment [SONY] and Apollo Global Management [APO] have said that, if they are successful in their bid to acquire the Paramount Global [PARA] media empire, they would auction off channels like CBS, MTV and Paramount Plus.