Meta's Watermelon matches GPT-5.5

TechCrunch

Alibaba is banning employees from using Anthropic's Claude Code after the AI company intensified efforts to block Chinese access to its models, including experimental user identification measures to prevent unauthorized reselling and model distillation. Alibaba has classified the tool as high-risk and will push employees toward its own Qoder alternative.

Google

Google DeepMind and filmmaker studio A24 are partnering to co-develop AI tools for creative production, with Google investing in A24 and researchers collaborating directly with artists to ensure technology serves creative vision.

Business Insider

Meta's upcoming 'Watermelon' AI model has reportedly matched OpenAI's GPT-5.5 performance on benchmarks, representing the clearest sign yet that Meta's massive infrastructure investments and aggressive talent acquisition are closing the gap with leading AI labs like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.

TechCrunch

Mistral AI has scaled to over $400 million ARR by focusing on enterprise deployments rather than consumer AI, using forward-deployed engineers to help governments and corporations adopt its models. The French company is positioning itself as a sovereign AI alternative to U.S. labs, building European infrastructure and targeting an eventual IPO.

Reuters

South Korea is mobilizing over half a trillion dollars in government-backed AI chip manufacturing investments, with Samsung and SK Hynix leading the charge to secure global market share in AI infrastructure.