April 28, 2025 News
Alibaba Launches Qwen3 Models with Advanced Reasoning Capabilities
Alibaba has released Qwen3, a family of AI models with sizes ranging from 0.6 billion to 235 billion parameters, claiming performance competitive with top models from Google and OpenAI. The models feature hybrid reasoning capabilities, supporting 119 languages and using a mixture of experts (MoE) architecture for computational efficiency.
Skynet Chance (+0.06%): The proliferation of highly capable AI models from multiple global entities increases overall risk of unaligned systems, with China-originated models potentially operating under different safety protocols than Western counterparts and intensifying AI development competition globally.
Skynet Date (-2 days): The international competition in AI development, evidenced by Alibaba's release of models matching or exceeding Western capabilities, likely accelerates the timeline toward potential control risks by driving a faster pace of capabilities advancement with potentially less emphasis on safety measures.
AGI Progress (+0.09%): Qwen3's hybrid reasoning capabilities, mixture of experts architecture, and competitive performance on challenging benchmarks represent significant technical advances toward AGI-level capabilities, particularly in self-correction and complex problem-solving domains.
AGI Date (-3 days): The introduction of models matching top commercial systems that are openly available for download dramatically accelerates AGI timeline by democratizing access to advanced AI capabilities and intensifying the global race to develop increasingly capable systems.
Huawei Developing Advanced AI Chip to Compete with Nvidia's H100
Chinese tech company Huawei is making progress developing its new Ascend 910D AI chip, which aims to rival Nvidia's H100 series used for training AI models. This development comes shortly after increased US restrictions on AI chip exports to China and could help fill the resulting void in the Chinese AI market.
Skynet Chance (+0.04%): The development of advanced AI chips outside of US regulatory control increases the potential for divergent AI development paths with potentially fewer safety guardrails, while also making powerful AI training capabilities more widespread and harder to monitor globally.
Skynet Date (-3 days): Huawei's chip development could accelerate the timeline toward advanced AI risks by circumventing export controls intended to slow capabilities development, potentially creating parallel advancement tracks operating under different safety and governance frameworks.
AGI Progress (+0.05%): While the chip itself doesn't directly advance AI algorithms, the proliferation of computing hardware comparable to Nvidia's H100 expands the infrastructure foundation necessary for training increasingly powerful models that could approach AGI capabilities.
AGI Date (-4 days): By potentially breaking hardware bottlenecks in AI model training outside of US export controls, Huawei's chip could significantly accelerate the global pace of AGI development by providing alternative computing resources for large-scale model training.