AI Showdown: US vs China's Battle for Tech Supremacy

From OpenAI's national blueprint to Tencent's massive models, explore how the US and China are battling for AI dominance, with innovation as their ultimate weapon.

Author

Tobias Wupperfeld
November 18, 2024

Welcome, paperless enthusiasts.

In this week's Insider, we explore the latest AI advancements in the US-China tech rivalry.

Discover how OpenAI, Alibaba, and Tencent are reshaping the global technological landscape.

Join us as we dive into the trends that will define the future of global tech!

Spiderman pointing at each other

In this week’s Insider:

  • Alibaba and Tencent release powerful new open-source AI

  • Stripe agents can handle payments or refunds

  • OpenAI presents US AI roadmap

  • 1 AI tool recommendation

Read time: 4 minutes

Latest News

👾 Alibaba’s Open-Source Leap with Qwen 2.5-Coder

An advanced, futuristic AI model visualized as a digital brain with flowing streams of code and data. The brain is surrounded by interconnected glowing nodes representing coding tasks, debugging, and AI assistants. The background shows a high-tech coding environment with large monitors displaying intricate code structures and algorithms. The image should convey the power, scale, and open-source flexibility of Qwen 2.5-Coder, with glowing lines and neon accents to suggest cutting-edge technology.

Qwen2.5-Coder is a cutting-edge open-source code generation model series, offering six parameter sizes (0.5B to 32B) and trained on 5.5 trillion tokens of source code and mixed datasets. The flagship Qwen2.5-Coder-32B-Instruct achieves state-of-the-art performance, rivaling proprietary models like GPT-4o in code generation, reasoning, and repair.

What's New:

  • Powerful & Diverse: Models optimized for coding tasks across multiple scales, from lightweight tools to advanced assistants.

  • Practical Applications: Proven success in real-world coding scenarios, including assistants and artifact generation.

  • Extended Context: Handles up to 128K tokens, perfect for complex coding tasks.

Business Impact:

  • Boost Developer Productivity: Accelerate code generation, debugging, and completion.

  • Open-Source Flexibility: Broad adoption and customization potential for teams of all sizes.

  • Cost-Effective Excellence: Competitive performance without proprietary restrictions.

🤯 Tencent's Hunyuan-Large Model: A Major AI Breakthrough

A colossal AI neural network represented by interconnected glowing nodes and lines, forming a vast web of data and information. The image should include a digital cityscape or futuristic tech hub in the background, symbolizing the impact of Tencent’s Hunyuan-Large AI. The neural network should radiate energy, with specific sections glowing more intensely to represent the 389 billion parameters. A sense of scale and breakthrough innovation should be conveyed, as the AI model outperforms its peers in complex tasks.

Tencent has unveiled Hunyuan-Large, the largest open-source Transformer-based Mixture of Experts (MoE) model, with a total of 389 billion parameters and 52 billion active parameters. This marks a significant milestone in AI development, offering cutting-edge capabilities in natural language processing (NLP), computer vision, and scientific applications.

What’s New:

Hunyuan-Large surpasses its peers across benchmarks. The launch positions Tencent as a stronger competitor in the AI race, directly challenging offerings like Alibaba’s Qwen series and GPT-4. By delivering sophisticated tools for businesses and developers, Tencent aims to reshape intelligent systems adoption and application.

Business Impact:

Tencent’s Hunyuan-Large model offers SMEs cutting-edge solutions, emphasizing flexibility and innovation, while expanding AI-driven opportunities across industries. You can try the model here for free.

🏦 Stripe’s New SDK for AI Agents

A futuristic digital interface showcasing Stripe’s AI Agent SDK, with visual representations of autonomous AI agents managing payments and transactions. The image should depict a virtual assistant interacting with a payment gateway, processing transactions, and creating virtual cards. Use clean, sleek UI elements and modern design to symbolize the ease of integration and the sophisticated AI-driven workflows. The background should evoke a sense of digital finance and seamless automation, with hints of code and financial data flowing.

Stripe has launched an AI Agent SDK, enabling seamless integration of payment and billing capabilities into AI-driven workflows.

What’s New:

  • Streamlined Integration: Works with frameworks like Vercel’s AI SDK, LangChain, CrewAI, and any LLM using function calling.

  • Advanced Features: Automates transactions, supports metered billing, and generates virtual cards for secure payments.

  • Accessible & Evolving: Available on GitHub with future updates planned.

Business Impact:

Stripe’s SDK unlocks new possibilities for autonomous financial systems:

  • AI Support Agents: Handle complex refund requests entirely without human intervention—understanding requests in any language, checking transaction history, processing refunds when appropriate, and explaining decisions to customers.

  • AI Billing Agents: Optimize subscription management by monitoring usage patterns, adjusting pricing tiers automatically, sending smart payment reminders, handling subscription changes, and negotiating payment plans.

  • AI Expense Managers: Streamline expense tracking by reading receipt context, generating virtual cards with proper limits, categorizing expenses, flagging unusual spending, and reconciling statements automatically.

Incredible, isn’t it? We’re on the brink of a new era where AI agents can directly manage real money flows—not just offer recommendations. This marks day one of financially empowered AI agents, unlocking massive opportunities for innovation and automation.

đź“ť OpenAI's Blueprint for AI Leadership: Competing with China

A powerful image symbolizing global AI competition, with a futuristic map of the U.S. highlighted as a tech powerhouse. Visualize the concept of AI Economic Zones with vibrant energy grids, sleek AI infrastructure projects, and modern power grids. Show a collaboration between AI professionals and advanced technology in a high-tech environment. The background should include visual metaphors of international cooperation, like handshake symbols or interconnected global cities. The overall tone should convey innovation, leadership, and a path to global competitiveness.

OpenAI has unveiled a bold policy blueprint to position the U.S. as a global AI leader, emphasizing infrastructure, energy, and international cooperation to compete with China's advancements.

What’s New:

  • AI Economic Zones: Streamlined permitting for AI infrastructure projects to boost innovation.

  • North American AI Alliance: Proposed collaboration on talent, financing, and supply chains across democratic nations.

  • Energy Modernization: Advocacy for upgraded power grids and renewed nuclear energy to meet AI's growing demands.

Business Impact:

OpenAI’s roadmap could accelerate AI development in the U.S., fostering innovation while strengthening global competitiveness. By aligning AI growth with workforce and energy investments, the blueprint highlights a path to sustainable tech leadership and revitalized economic opportunities.

Tested AI Tools

🔧 ChatGPT Desktop with Advanced Voice Mode

ChatGPT’s new Advanced Voice Mode helps you learn new software or applications effortlessly, providing instant answers and real-time, step-by-step guidance.

How to Use:

  1. Open the ChatGPT desktop app and position it side-by-side with your new software.

  2. Describe what you're seeing (e.g., "I’m on the main screen of Keynote and see...").

  3. Ask specific questions about the software’s features and follow the step-by-step guidance ChatGPT provides.

  4. Troubleshoot any issues by explaining what’s happening on screen.

On the left the ChatGPT interface with advanced voice mode. On the right a new presentation in Keynote.

Bonus: Take it step-by-step and verify each action before moving forward. This method ensures you're learning effectively, not just following instructions.

That’s it for This Week

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Tobias from the PaperlessZone

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