Less than a week after sending tremors through Silicon Valley and across the media landscape with an affordable large language model called DeepSeek-R1, the Chinese AI startup behind that technology has debuted another new product — the multimodal Janus-Pro-7B with an aptitude for image generation. Further mining the vein of efficiency that made R1 impressive to many, Janus-Pro-7B utilizes “a single, unified transformer architecture for processing.” Emphasizing “simplicity, high flexibility and effectiveness,” DeepSeek says Janus Pro is positioned to be a frontrunner among next-generation unified multimodal models. Continue reading DeepSeek Follows Its R1 LLM Debut with Multimodal Janus-Pro

Hangzhou-based AI firm DeepSeek is roiling the U.S. tech sector and upending financial markets. The startup has managed to become competitive with Silicon Valley’s deep learning firms despite U.S. sanctions that prevent Chinese technology companies from buying premium chips. DeepSeek has made it into the global top 10 in terms of model performance, and as of this week had the top-ranked free AI assistant at the Apple App Store. DeepSeek’s new R1 model has drawn attention for using less computing power than competing systems, while performing comparably, despite having been developed using older Nvidia chips. Continue reading Chinese AI Startup DeepSeek Disrupting the U.S. Tech Sector

The UK AI Safety Institute announced the availability of its new Inspect platform designed for the evaluation and testing of artificial intelligence tech in order to help develop safe AI models. The Inspect toolset enables testers — including worldwide researchers, government agencies, and startups — to analyze the specific capabilities of such models and establish scores based on various criteria. According to the Institute, the “release comes at a crucial time in AI development, as more powerful models are expected to hit the market over the course of 2024, making the push for safe and responsible AI development more pressing than ever.” Continue reading UK Launches New Open-Source Platform for AI Safety Testing