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Good morning. It’s Wednesday, January 29th.

Did you know: On this day in 1999, Yahoo bought GeoCities for $3.65 billion, only to shut it down 10 years later.

In today’s email:

• DeepSeek now offered on Perplexity with US/EU Servers

• Did DeepSeek Steal OpenAI Data?

• Chinese Robot Maker Eyes Mass Production

• 3 New AI Tools

• Latest AI Research Papers

You read. We listen. Let us know what you think by replying to this email.

Perplexity Now Offers DeepSeek AI Based in US/EU Servers

DeepSeek R1 is now live on Perplexity AI. Perplexity’s new Pro Search mode lets users switch between DeepSeek R1 and OpenAI’s o1, complete with chain-of-thought transparency. Daily usage limits have been upped for both free and paid tiers, all while keeping data firmly anchored in US/EU servers.

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas hailed the integration, calling it a leap forward for AI search agents and vowing to scale US data center capacity to meet demand. As Srinivas put it, “The proliferation of search agents and assistants that can reason has just begun.” Read more. (Paywall)

Microsoft Probing If DeepSeek-Linked Group Improperly Obtained OpenAI Data

Microsoft and OpenAI are investigating whether DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, improperly leveraged OpenAI's API to siphon proprietary data at scale. Microsoft’s security team reportedly observed individuals tied to DeepSeek extracting large volumes of data via OpenAI’s API last fall, potentially violating OpenAI’s terms of service.

The allegations, including claims of “distillation” techniques using OpenAI’s outputs, have stirred market volatility, erasing nearly $1 trillion from tech stocks. Achieving tenfold efficiency over competitors like Meta, this milestone was made possible by bypassing industry-standard Nvidia CUDA framework in favor of its lower-level, assembly-like PTX programming, according to an analysis from Mirae Asset Securities Korea, cited by @Jukanlosreve. This approach enabled granular optimizations, such as reconfiguring streaming multiprocessors and refining thread-level operations.

However, concerns arise over whether DeepSeek’s approach signals a shift towards more software-driven efficiency or remains an isolated feat. Industry figures remain divided: some view the achievement as a step towards broader AI accessibility, while others argue the hardware requirements for advanced models will persist regardless of optimization progress. (Paywall bypass link) Read more.

Chinese robot maker UBTech eyes mass production of industrial humanoids by year end

UBTech Robotics is gearing up to scale industrial automation, with plans to mass-produce its Walker S Series humanoid robots by late 2025. The Shenzhen-based firm aims to deploy 500 to 1,000 units this year, targeting heavyweights like Foxconn, automotive manufacturers, and logistics leader SF Express.

Factories offer structured environments ideal for training these bots, while labor shortages make the case for automation undeniable. Though the dream of household humanoids remains on the horizon, current AI limitations keep the focus on industrial use cases. Since its 2012 launch, UBTech has expanded into non-humanoid bots for cleaning, delivery, and service roles. The Walker S1, unveiled in late 2024, underscores its push to dominate China’s cutthroat robotics arena. Read more.

• Alibaba's Qwen team releases AI models that can control PCs and phones

• Berkeley Researchers Replicate DeepSeek R1's Core Tech for Just $30: A Small Model RL Revolution

• Scientists propose making AI face pain-pleasure game to test sentience

• Introducing Hailuo T2V-01-Director Model: Control Your Camera Like a Pro 

• NotebookLM and NotebookLM Plus coming to Google Workspace as core services

• xAI develops voice mode for iOS app with Grok and ElevenLabs models

• Meta upgrades its AI chatbot with more personalization features

• Trump: DeepSeek's AI should be a 'wakeup call' to US industry

• Robot dog battles drone in fireworks fight, sparking future warfare concerns

• Altman Signals Bold Future for OpenAI-Microsoft Partnership

• 𝕏 Pushes into Financial Services with Visa Deal

• How Elon Musk built an AI moat around Tesla impervious to DeepSeek’s ‘Sputnik moment’

• Alibaba releases AI model it says surpasses DeepSeek

• Pika Labs unveils Pika 2.1 AI model with 1080p video quality

• Deepseek's Janus Pro is a good upgrade, but it won't fuel a US AI 'Sputnik crisis'

• New glowing molecule, invented by AI, would have taken 500 million years to evolve in nature, scientists say

• Hugging Face researchers are trying to build a more open version of DeepSeek's AI 'reasoning' model

• Apple, SpaceX Link Up to Support Starlink Satellite Network on iPhones

• Who is Liang Wenfeng? DeepSeek founder comes from AI investing 

• Tracking people’s gazes in real time at retail stores with Moondream

• Another OpenAI safety researcher has quit

📄 Baichuan-Omni-1.5 Technical Report

📄 Redundancy Principles for MLLMs Benchmarks ​​

📄 Qwen2.5-1M Technical Report

📄 Towards General-Purpose Model-Free Reinforcement Learning

📄 Optimizing Large Language Model Training Using FP4 Quantization  

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