There are some exiting news for this week.

Google DeepMind Emphasizes Preparation for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)

Google DeepMind released a 145-page paper highlighting the importance of long-term AI safety planning in anticipation of achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The paper categorizes potential risks into four main areas and proposes measures for mitigating them through developer interventions, societal changes, and policy reforms. This underscores the urgency to prepare for AGI, despite uncertainties in predicting its arrival.

OpenAI’s Valuation Surpasses Chevron After SoftBank Funding

OpenAI achieved a valuation of $300 billion following a $40 billion investment from Japan’s SoftBank. This valuation surpasses that of oil giant Chevron, which has a market cap of $293 billion. OpenAI plans to use the new funds to advance AI research, scale its compute infrastructure, and enhance the capabilities of its ChatGPT tool. Despite its high valuation, OpenAI still operates at a loss, having lost $5 billion on $3.7 billion in revenue last year.

Alibaba Gears Up to Drop Its New Flagship AI Model – Qwen 3 – This April

Looks like the AI race just got even spicier. Alibaba, the Chinese tech giant, is prepping to launch the next big version of its large language model, called Qwen 3, and it could be hitting the scene as soon as this April.

Now, if you’re thinking, “Didn’t they just release something?” — you’re not wrong. Back in January (right at the start of the Lunar New Year, no less), Alibaba rolled out Qwen 2.5-Max, which they claimed was already outperforming DeepSeek’s V3 model. And yes, DeepSeek is the same company that made waves recently with a super cost-effective AI model that got everyone’s attention.

Clearly, Alibaba isn’t taking that lightly. The speed at which they’re iterating shows just how intense the AI arms race is getting — not just in the West with OpenAI and Google, but across the globe.

While we don’t have a locked-in release date yet for Qwen 3, Bloomberg reports that it could be ready this month. And if their last release was anything to go by, expect it to be packed with improvements and a solid performance boost over earlier versions.

What’s also interesting is the strategy: releasing these models close together, staying in the spotlight, and clearly signaling that Alibaba wants a major seat at the global AI table.

Whether you’re a developer, AI enthusiast, or just curious about the ever-growing world of machine learning, Qwen 3 is definitely something to keep an eye on. It’s going to be fascinating to see how it stacks up against other big players like GPT-4, Claude, and Gemini.

Stay tuned — April’s about to get a lot more intelligent.