Category: AI News

Chinese technology giant Tencent has released its new AI model, Hunyuan Turbo S, which it claims can answer queries faster than the DeepSeek-R1 model. The model is available on the official Tencent Cloud website and is accessible via API.

Hunyuan Turbo S doubles the output speed and reduces the first word delay by 44 per cent, the company announced on its official WeChat channel.

Tencent said that the rapid thinking model is analogous to human intuition, which often results in quick responses compared to rational thinking. However, the company said that Hunyuan Turbo S efficiently solves problems by merging long and short chains of thought.

The model uses an innovative hybrid-mamba transformer fusion architecture. It optimises efficiency by reducing the computational complexity of the conventional transformer, minimising the use of KV-Cache storage and reducing training and inference costs.

The company also stated that the model leverages Mamba’s efficiency in processing long sequences, while preserving Transformer’s power in capturing complex contextual relationships.

Tencent also claims that this is the first time the Mamba architecture has been applied losslessly to a super-large Mixture of Experts (MoE) model.

Tencent also released benchmark results and the model is better, if not on par with other large language models such as DeepSeek-V3, Claude 3.5 Sonnet and GPT-4o, in mathematics, coding and reasoning tasks.

The input API price of Hunyuan Turbo S is 0.8 yuan ($0.11) per million tokens and its output price is 2 yuan ($0.28) per million tokens.

With the rise of DeepSeek, competition in the Chinese AI ecosystem is heating up. Recently, Alibaba unveiled a preview of the Qwen QwQ-Max reasoning model and pledged to invest $52 billion in AI infrastructure over the next three years.

It was also reported that DeepSeek plans to release its next reasoning model, DeepSeek R2, ‘as soon as possible’. The company had initially planned to release it in early May, but is now considering an earlier timeline.

The model is expected to produce ‘better coding’ and reasoning in languages other than English.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

On Friday, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran said it is ‘imperative’ for India to focus on sovereign artificial intelligence capabilities, warning that the country risks exposing itself to ‘digital colonialism’.

He said the advent of artificial intelligence is a pivotal moment in human civilisation, similar to the invention of electricity, and should not be seen as just another technology coming along.

‘The countries that will lead in artificial intelligence will not only export artificial intelligence, they will be leaders in future ways of thinking and export them around the world. It is so important that we (India) get it right,’ he said at the Mumbai Tech Week event here.

Sovereign artificial intelligence or a particular country’s work in new technologies is also important to safeguard culture and lifestyle, he stressed.

‘If we do not develop sovereign artificial intelligence capabilities, we run a greater risk that all our activities, languages and cultures will be processed by artificial intelligence engines that do not understand India. So, this will take us to a different place, a kind of digital colonialism that we should avoid. It is an imperative (to focus on artificial intelligence),’ he said.

‘We have to develop the required capabilities, put in place the infrastructure and develop the knowledge so that we are totally independent in the way we deploy artificial intelligence, develop it and use it on our data,’ the Tata Group chairman said.

Contrary to fears in the public imagination, artificial intelligence will be a net job creator for a country like India, he said, adding that the nature of jobs could be different.

Developments in artificial intelligence include work on chips, the hardware ecosystem and even robots and humanoids, which will soon run on Gen AI, he said.

Traditional business advantages will matter much less in the future, he said, adding that what will matter more is the vision one has and how it is executed.

‘Technological capability is required and we have to use the right tools and systems. We have to protect all our data and use it to develop India,’ he said, emphasising that talent sovereignty is also important. ‘We have to regulate AI also according to your needs,’ he said.

‘Sovereign AI is about being a creator, but not about being a consumer,’ he said, adding that the consumer will help grow GDP. ‘If you want to be a creator, we need an AI stack in India with aspects like a base layer that actually provides the processing infrastructure and also accessible basic research.

He welcomed government initiatives like the AI mission as a step in the right direction.

Social sector challenges such as education and healthcare can also be addressed using AI, he said. Chandrasekaran also assured that the Tata Group will play its part in the ongoing progress.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)