Qwen is the world’s most downloaded open model, by a smaller margin than Alibaba says
Qwen is the world’s most downloaded open model, by a smaller margin than Alibaba says

Alibaba says its Qwen models have passed 3 billion downloads, making them the most used open-weight family in the world. The Hugging Face report published a day earlier counts 2,045 million for Qwen this year, and 151,448 derivatives against Alibaba’s …

Voyah recreated Mercedes’ upside-down tunnel ad, then launched the car for $33,800
Voyah recreated Mercedes’ upside-down tunnel ad, then launched the car for $33,800

Dongfeng’s Voyah launched the Passion S electric SUV on Friday after promoting it with a stunt in which the car drove a full loop around a tunnel ceiling in Wuhan. Prices start at 229,900 yuan, about $33,800, for a car with 800V charging and Huawei’s l…

The US is about to tell 35 countries to choose between it and China on AI
The US is about to tell 35 countries to choose between it and China on AI

Michael Martina reported the draft for Reuters on 14 August, citing a US official and an internal document. The letter goes to the 35 signatories of an American “AI Opportunity Statement” from June. Its message is that countries must choose. The wordin…

The US told Apple not to buy Chinese memory chips. It has no rule that stops it
The US told Apple not to buy Chinese memory chips. It has no rule that stops it

The commerce secretary made the comments to The Wall Street Journal on 14 August, in a piece by Rolfe Winkler, Raffaele Huang and Amrith Ramkumar. “The Trump administration is not in favor of that,” Lutnick said. There have to be “other solutions to th…

Five of Europe’s biggest companies just bought compute Mistral has not built
Five of Europe’s biggest companies just bought compute Mistral has not built

Mistral set out the plan on 11 August. Its own announcement covers three things at once. Regional endpoints are now generally available, letting customers pick Europe or the US for inference. A Priority Tier in public preview adds custom rate limits an…

Europe’s ‘Made in EU’ rules start at 5%, and they do not mention software
Europe’s ‘Made in EU’ rules start at 5%, and they do not mention software

The Industrial Accelerator Act arrived on 4 March 2026 as COM(2026)100, alongside an impact assessment and three staff working documents, per the European Commission. Its formal title says what it is for. It establishes a framework for accelerating ind…

Microsoft told Google it was overreacting in 2010. It has spent five years quietly leaving China
Microsoft told Google it was overreacting in 2010. It has spent five years quietly leaving China

Corporate filings show the closures, Reuters reported in an exclusive. The revenue figure is the one that explains the rest. China accounted for 1.5% of global revenue as of 2024. Microsoft has no current plan to exit. It has simply stopped growing the…

Apple trained its own AI model for China, and handed the brain to Alibaba
Apple trained its own AI model for China, and handed the brain to Alibaba

Apple has trained its own large language model for the Chinese market with Alibaba’s support, a striking break from the company’s usual habit of leaning on other people’s models. According to a Reuters report, Apple is the first foreign firm Beijing ha…

DeepSeek built a Claude Code rival, then quadrupled its prices
DeepSeek built a Claude Code rival, then quadrupled its prices

Start with the money, because it is the part every developer noticed. From 16 August, a million output tokens through DeepSeek-V4-Pro costs $3.96 at peak, up from $0.87. V4-Flash goes from $0.28 to $1.32, Bloomberg reported. Off-peak rates are half the…

Volkswagen can build a $17,175 car. Just not in Europe
Volkswagen can build a $17,175 car. Just not in Europe

Start with the Volkswagen, because it is the one that should give Europe pause. SAIC Volkswagen, the joint venture with China’s state-owned SAIC Motor, opened preorders for the ID. Era 5S saloon this week. The introductory price is 115,900 yuan, which …