April 28, 2026 — curated links and takeaways.
1. DeepSeek unveils new AI model tailored for Huawei chips as China pushes for tech autonomy
DeepSeek launched a preview of a new model adapted for Huawei chip technology, signaling China's push for semiconductor autonomy in AI. The move underscores the strategic shift toward domestic hardware integration following last year's viral low-cost model success.
2. Former Google DeepMind researcher's AI startup raises record $1.1 billion seed funding to pursue superintelligence
Ineffable Intelligence closed a $1.1B seed round co-led by Sequoia and Lightspeed, with backing from Nvidia, Google, and the U.K.'s Sovereign AI Fund. The record seed size reflects investor appetite for reinforcement learning-focused startups targeting AGI research.
3. Anthropic names Theo Hourmouzis General Manager of Australia & New Zealand and officially opens Sydney office
Anthropic opened its Sydney office and appointed Theo Hourmouzis as GM for Australia & New Zealand. The expansion marks Anthropic's geographic scaling beyond North America and Europe as Claude adoption grows in the region.
4. HappyHorse 1.0: Alibaba ATH Innovation Unit's latest video generation and editing model
Alibaba ATH Innovation Unit began grayscale testing of HappyHorse 1.0 (快乐小马), a video generation and editing model, on April 27. The release signals continued competition in the multimodal space with Chinese alternatives to OpenAI's Sora and other Western video models.
5. OpenAI signed $20 billion deal with chipmaker for 750 megawatts of AI inference capacity
OpenAI secured a $20B capacity purchase agreement spanning 2026–2028, with option for an additional 1.25 gigawatts by 2030, signaling massive scaling of production inference workloads. The deal demonstrates how frontier labs are locking in long-term compute commitments to meet deployment demand.