Japan PM Takaichi’s party likely to increase seats in lower house
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party is likely to increase its number of parliamentary seats and gain a majority in the lower hous...
Microsoft is working on a new generation of in-house artificial intelligence reasoning models designed to rival those from OpenAI, according to a report by The Information.
The company, which has been a major backer of OpenAI, is exploring options to reduce its dependence on external AI technology and may eventually offer these models to developers via an application programming interface.
The report indicates that Microsoft is testing models from xAI, Meta, and DeepSeek as potential replacements for the technology currently powering its Microsoft 365 Copilot. Reuters reported in December that Microsoft had been actively integrating both internal and third-party AI models into Copilot to diversify its technological foundation and lower costs, given that the service was originally built on OpenAI's GPT-4.
Microsoft’s AI division, led by Mustafa Suleyman, has reportedly completed training a family of models internally known as MAI. These models are said to perform nearly as well as leading models from OpenAI and Anthropic on standard benchmarks. In addition, Suleyman’s team is developing reasoning models that use chain-of-thought techniques—methods that generate answers through intermediate reasoning steps—to directly compete with similar models from OpenAI.
Suleyman’s team is already experimenting with replacing OpenAI’s models in Copilot with the newly developed MAI models, which are significantly larger than an earlier series known as Phi. Microsoft is considering a release of these models later this year in the form of an API, which would enable external developers to integrate the advanced AI reasoning capabilities into their own applications.
Neither Microsoft nor OpenAI immediately responded to requests for comment.
France’s National Assembly has approved a bill banning access to social media for children under 15, a move backed by President Emmanuel Macron and the government as part of efforts to protect teenagers’ mental and physical health.
The S&P 500 edged to a record closing high on Tuesday, marking its fifth consecutive day of gains, as strong advances in technology stocks offset a sharp selloff in healthcare shares and a mixed batch of corporate earnings.
Sanctions are a long-used tool designed as an alternative to military force and with the objective of changing governments’ behaviour, but they also end up hurting civilian citizens.
A routine military training exercise turned into a major recovery mission this week after a catastrophic mudslide swept through a hillside in West Java, Indonesia.
Residents in Syria’s Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli have stepped up volunteer patrols amid growing pressure from the country’s Islamist-led government, expressing deep mistrust of Damascus despite a fragile U.S.-backed ceasefire.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party is likely to increase its number of parliamentary seats and gain a majority in the lower house, a preliminary survey by the Nikkei newspaper showed on Thursday (29 January).
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday (29 January) for talks he hopes will deepen economic ties, signalling a potential breakthrough after years of strained relations.
U.S. President Donald Trump urged Iran on Wednesday (28 January) to come to the table and make a deal on nuclear weapons or the next U.S. attack would be far worse. Tehran responded with a threat to strike back against the United States.
Life will be particularly tough for Ukrainians over the next three weeks due to plunging temperatures and a compromised energy infrastructure that has been pummeled by intense Russian attacks, depriving millions of light and heat, a senior lawmaker said on Wednesday.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has called for tax increases on the city’s wealthiest residents and most profitable corporations, warning that the city is facing a fiscal crisis on a scale greater than the Great Recession.
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