🗞 AI Funding Race with China, OpenAI's Robot Push, and Microsoft's Security Crackdown

🔎 The Latest on the AI Frontier:

• OpenAI Urges Greater US Investment in AI, Warning of Chinese Competition

• OpenAI Ventures into Robotics with Mass-Production Plans

• Microsoft Takes Legal Action Against AI Safety Control Hackers

• Perplexity AI Launches Real-Time Sports Updates Platform for NBA and NFL

• TikTok Announces US Operations Closure Following Legal Setback

• Berkeley Team Develops Cost-Efficient AI Model for Under $500

• Other news you might find interesting

💰 OpenAI calls for increased US investment and regulation in AI to maintain competitive edge over China in new economic blueprint

• The company warns that $175 billion in global AI funding could flow to China-backed projects if the US doesn't create attractive investment conditions.

• The proposal comes days before Trump's inauguration, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman donating $1M to Trump's inaugural fund and David Sacks set to become AI czar.

• Microsoft-backed OpenAI raised $6.6B last year and plans to host a DC event to discuss its proposals, including new export controls on AI models.

🤖 OpenAI expands into robotics hardware with ambitious plans for developing general-purpose robots with custom sensors and AI integration

• Under new hardware director Caitlin Kalinowski, OpenAI aims to create adaptive and versatile robots designed for real-world settings, complete with proprietary sensor technology and in-house AI models.

• The company's job listings indicate plans for large-scale production, seeking engineers with experience in high-volume manufacturing (1M+ units) and suggesting the robots may include limbed designs.

• The robotics sector shows strong market potential, having raised over $6.4B in VC funding last year, though OpenAI will face significant technical challenges in achieving its goals for mass-produced humanoid systems.

⚖️ Microsoft files lawsuit against hackers who created tools to bypass AI safety controls and sell illicit content generation services

• Microsoft is suing 10 unidentified defendants who ran a "hacking-as-a-service" operation using compromised customer accounts to access AI services.

• The scheme used a proxy server that mimicked legitimate Azure OpenAPI requests, exploiting stolen API keys from exposed repositories.

• The legal action cites violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and RICO, aiming to stop operations that bypassed AI safety measures.

⚽ Perplexity AI expands into sports with real-time NBA and NFL updates platform, aiming to enhance fan engagement during major events

• Platform debuts with real-time updates, schedules, and play-by-play breakdowns for NBA and NFL games during playoff season.

• Users are requesting expansion beyond current offerings to include additional sports like soccer and NHL.

• Move represents Perplexity AI's strategic expansion from conversational search into specialized sports analytics.

📱 TikTok announces US operations shutdown by January 19 following unsuccessful legal battle against Foreign Adversary Act ban

• The company confirmed its decision to cease US operations after failing to divest from ByteDance and losing its First Amendment-based legal challenge.

• While global operations will continue outside the US, American users have less than 10 days left to access the platform, with a pending Supreme Court hearing their last hope.

• The platform's future in the US may depend on President-elect Trump's administration, which could potentially amend the law after taking office.

🧠 UC Berkeley researchers break cost barriers in AI development by releasing Sky-T1, an open-source reasoning model trained for under $450

• The 32-billion-parameter Sky-T1 model, trained in just 19 hours using 8 Nvidia H100 GPUs, outperforms early versions of OpenAI's o1 on MATH500 and LiveCodeBench evaluations.

• The breakthrough in affordable AI development comes from using synthetic training data, with the team leveraging Alibaba's QwQ-32B-Preview and OpenAI's GPT-4o-mini for data generation and formatting.

• This release marks a significant shift in AI accessibility, as similar models previously required millions in development costs, though Sky-T1 still lags behind the latest o1 version in certain specialized knowledge tests like GPQA-Diamond.

🖨 More news you might find interesting:

• Biden administration unveils final AI chip export restrictions aimed at curbing China's access to advanced technology.

• OpenAI takes swift action against engineer who created ChatGPT-powered sentry gun, reinforcing its strict stance against AI weapons development.

• AI agents emerge as next tech frontier with 82% of organizations planning adoption, but experts warn of significant risks and limitations.

• Chinese AI company DeepSeek enters mobile AI market with free iOS app featuring advanced reasoning and search capabilities.

• Healthcare AI startup Qventus secures $105M Series D funding, highlighting strong investor confidence in AI-powered healthcare automation solutions.

• The iPhone 15 series maintains Apple's premium pricing while adding upgrades including USB-C adoption and Dynamic Island for all models.

• Post-purchase customer service innovator Narvar launches IRIS, an AI-powered platform showing operational improvements.

• Bee Pioneer Band launches $50 AI wristband that records daily conversations to provide personalized insights and searchable transcripts.

• Stanford researchers develop AI algorithm that predicts Type 2 diabetes subtypes with 90% accuracy using standard glucose monitor data.

• US tech unemployment drops to 2% in December 2024, marking lowest rate in over two years with 7,000 new jobs added.

• UK government unveils ambitious plan to create homegrown OpenAI rival and boost national AI infrastructure.

• AMD challenges Nvidia's GPU dominance with growing adoption of MI300X accelerators, though Nvidia counters with strategic acquisition.

• Neuralink announces successful implantation of brain-computer device in third patient, with plans to expand trials significantly in 2025.

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