A secretive Chinese AI model startup founded in February by a Tsinghua University professor is now valued at more than $1.4 billion, after raising $400 million in three funding rounds from investors including Tencent, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

Beijing-based Naive AI is preparing to release its first large language model as early as this month, joining the country’s fierce LLM competition as a newcomer, according to the person. The startup plans to release it as an open-weight model, similar to offerings from DeepSeek, Moonshot and Alibaba that people can download for free and customize to their liking.

Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman for Silicon Valley, has sent letters to Chinese AI companies including Alibaba Group, DeepSeek and Moonshot, requesting their commitments to join American AI labs in a binding international agreement to pace the development of the technology.

Khanna, a ranking ...

The co-founder and CEO of Mech-Mind Robotics, a Beijing-based robotics firm that recently went public, said in a post on WeChat on Thursday that many Chinese embodied AI companies are “creating false and unsustainable revenue,” in response to The Information’s scoop on Chinese regulators ...

China’s Ministry of Commerce rejected U.S. accusations that some Chinese AI firms are conducting “industrial-scale distillation” of American AI models, describing Washington’s latest move as an attempt to politicize a “normal technical and commercial issue.”

“China’s open-source models are ...

The U.S. government has accused six Chinese AI firms of using large-scale distillation to copy the capabilities of American models, in a move that highlights the intensifying AI rivalry between the two nations.

The six Chinese firms under accusation are DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Alibaba Group, ...

Meta Platforms said it plans to release an open-weight version of its most advanced Muse Spark 1.2 model soon. The Facebook owner also announced a new small-size open-source model called Muse Glimmer that can run on personal computers.

Meta’s move could provide customers with alternatives to ...

Sony Group and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. are planning to invest about 1 trillion yen ($6.3 billion) in a joint venture that will start mass producing next-generation image sensors in Japan as early as 2029, the Nikkei newspaper reported.

The new joint venture, expected to be ...

On a muggy morning in April, a venture capitalist from San Francisco arrived in China’s southern tech hub of Shenzhen with a long shopping list. His friends at U.S. robotic startups had asked him to bring back humanoids and various robotic components from China.

He headed to Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei district, the world’s biggest electronics bazaar. At one store, he bought humanoids, which he arranged to ship back to the U.S. He then went upstairs to component floors—a labyrinth of countless stalls barely larger than walk-in closets—to pick up robot parts that control motion, manage power and carry signals. Instead of shipping those components as freight, he packed them in a suitcase and took that with him on a flight back to San Francisco.

South Korean memory maker SK Hynix said on Friday that it will start the construction of two new chip plants next year, after its board approved its plan to invest about 54 trillion won ($38 billion) in the new fabs.

The company’s announcement of the timelines for its new fabs comes as demand ...

China’s top internet regulator said on Thursday it had launched a cybersecurity review of products sold in the country by U.S. security software firm Palo Alto Networks.

The Cyberspace Administration of China said that the purpose of the review is to “ensure the secure and stable operation of ...

Chinese AI developer DeepSeek’s release on Friday of a smaller version of its flagship V4 open-source model is causing a stir.

In early tests, the model, V4-Flash, demonstrated capabilities comparable to much larger open-source and proprietary models, and it’s also less expensive than those ...

Chinese AI firm MiniMax on Friday announced a new open-source video generation model, H3, cranking up competition against AI video rivals like ByteDance and Google.

MiniMax is trying to shake up the market by open-sourcing its flagship video model for the first time. MiniMax said H3, a ...