Baltic Dry Index. 1877 -12 Brent Crude 60.64
Spot Gold 4562 Spot Silver 79.67
US 2 Year Yield 3.46 -0.01
US Federal Debt. 38.468 trillion US GDP 31.671 trillion.
Capitalism gave the world what it needed, a higher standard of living for a steadily increasing number of people.
Ludwig von Mises
6:00 AM GMT 29 December 2025
An interesting, volatile day ahead for stocks and commodities?
Asia-Pacific
markets trade mixed in final week of 2025
Published
Sun, Dec 28 2025 6:45 PM EST
Asia-Pacific
markets traded mixed on Monday as investors kicked off the final trading week
of the year.
Japan’s
benchmark Nikkei 225 slid
0.55%, while the Topix lost 0.26%. South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.62%, while the
Kosdaq index advanced 0.19%.
Hong
Kong’s Hang Seng index jumped
0.7%, while the mainland’s CSI 300 traded flat.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was 0.21%
lower.
Prices of
spot silver rose to a fresh record high of above $80 per ounce before pulling
back sharply to $77. Silver’s recent surge was driven by speculative buying and
lingering supply tightness, said experts. Sprott Asset Management said silver’s
rally this year reflects a depletion of freely traded inventory, amplifying
price moves as demand increases.
“Silver
continues to price in the more favorable 2026 macro-outlook, with lower
interest rates and the potential for a weaker U.S. dollar boosting the appeal
for hard assets,” said Trevor Yates, senior investment analyst at Global X
ETFs.
U.S.
equity futures were flat in early Asian hours. On Friday stateside, the S&P 500 reached
a new high and posted weekly gains as traders came back from the
Christmas holiday.
The broad
market index closed down 0.03% to end at 6,929.94. At its high, the S&P 500
was up 0.2%, reaching 6,945.77. The Nasdaq Composite slipped
0.09% and closed at 23,593.10. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell
20.19 points, or 0.04%, and settled at 48,710.97.
For the
week, the S&P 500 gained 1.4%, notching its fourth weekly advance in five
weeks. The Dow and Nasdaq were also up more than 1% week to date.
Asia-Pacific
markets: Nikkei 225, Hang Seng Index, Kospi
Stock futures are
little changed after S&P 500 hits fresh record: Live updates
Updated
Sun, Dec 28 2025 6:26 PM EST
Stock
futures were little changed Sunday night after the S&P 500 scaled to fresh
record levels, with traders set to wrap up a strong 2025.
S&P
500 futures were up marginally, along with those tied to the Dow Jones
Industrial Average. Nasdaq-100 futures traded around the flatline as well.
Those
moves come after the S&P 500 on Friday hit an intraday high of 6,945.77
before ending the session just below breakeven.
It has
been a banner year on Wall Street, with the benchmark index up 17.7% in 2025.
The Dow has gained 14.5%, putting it on track for its strongest year since
2021. The Nasdaq Composite has outperformed year-to-date, up 22.2%.
Wall
Street is also in the throes of the Santa Claus rally period, a historically
strong time for the stock market. Since 1950, the S&P 500 has averaged a
gain of more than 1% between the last five trading days of the year and the
first two of the new year, according to the Stock Trader’s Almanac.
The
economic data calendar is light for the week, but investors will get one more
read into the Federal Reserve’s mindset heading into 2026. The central bank’s
minutes from its December meeting are due for release on Wednesday at 2 p.m.
ET.
Stock
market today: Live updates
What Is the
Silver Price Prediction for 2026? Full Forecast
Silver is
Entering 2026 with Strong Momentum as Rising Industrial Demand Pushes the Price
to Record Highs
29 Dec
2025, 4:30 am
Silver
prices are trading at record highs after a strong rally in 2025. Spot silver
recently moved into the $70 - $75 per ounce zone, supported by strong investor
demand, tightening physical supply, and rising industrial use. This makes
silver one of the best-performing commodities moving into 2026.
Market
activities across physical bullion and silver-backed funds have increased, with
a jump in investment demands pulling more physical metal out of circulation.
This resulted in a tight market environment with limited buffers if demand
accelerates further.
Industrial
Demand Trends Shaping 2026 Expectations
Silver’s
requirement as an industrial metal is a major reason for strong 2026 forecasts.
The demand for silver is rising in solar panel manufacturing as governments
push renewable energy targets. EVs also need more silver than regular vehicles
for power control and charging infrastructure.
Electronics,
data centers, and communication networks involve long-term technology and
infrastructure investments, further increasing industrial demand throughout
2026, even if global growth slows.
Supply
Limitations and Ongoing Market Deficits
Most
silver is produced as a by-product when other metals, such as copper, zinc, and
lead, are mined. This makes it difficult for producers to quickly increase
output based on price surges.
New
mining projects take years to develop, while the recycling process is not fast
enough to bridge this supply gap. With a shortage of production reducing
available stocks and turning prices more sensitive to shifting investor or
industrial demand, this situation may continue even in 2026.
Interest
Rates, Inflation, and Investor Behavior
Monetary
policy expectations are important for 2026’s silver price prediction. If interest rates
fall or stay low for long, real yields could start dropping. These conditions
generally support precious metals like silver because they reduce the cost of
holding non-interest-bearing assets.
Silver
can also behave as a hedge against inflation and decreasing currency value. If
inflation rises or confidence in major currencies dips, investor demand for
silver may skyrocket. These macroeconomic factors, crucial in 2025, will also
be important in 2026.
Silver
Price Prediction for 2026
Silver forecasts in 2026 depend on
assumptions. Conservative estimates from major banks and other leading
financial institutions have set the average price target at around $56 to $65
per ounce. This outlook assumes steady economic growth and plummeting inflation
after 2025’s gains.
More
optimistic forecasts, based on technical trends and momentum, suggest the metal
could trade between $70 to $90 per ounce during 2026. Here, traders assume high
investment inflows, strong industrial demand, and minimal improvement in supply
conditions.
Bullish
predictions suggest prices may reach $100 to $200 per ounce if the US dollar
falls sharply, major geopolitical events happen, or a panic purchase occurs due
to physical shortages.
Base-Case
Outlook for 2026
Considering
all factors, the most realistic outlook for 2026 hints at high volatility
despite increased demand. Silver may trade well above
its previous prices due to limited supply growth.
A price
between $55 and $90 per ounce is reasonable, with a year-end level of around
$65 to $75 per ounce. This shows strong fundamentals without assuming extreme
situations.
Risks
that Could Shift the Forecast
Silver
prices are sensitive to changing interest rates and economic conditions. If
rates or real yields suddenly increase, silver may face downward pressure, and
prices could retreat toward the $40 to $55 range.
On the
other hand, stronger-than-expected sustainable energy expansion, supply
disruptions, or renewed large-scale investment inflows could push silver above
base-case forecasts. While technological changes that reduce silver use are a
long-term risk, they are unlikely to have a major impact by 2026.
Final
Outlook
Silver is
entering 2026 with strong momentum and solid fundamentals. Growing industrial
demands, current supply constraints, and supportive monetary conditions provide
a strong foundation for record prices.
Despite
volatility, the overall outlook for
2026 supports a price hike. Under normal conditions,
silver may trade between $55- $90 per ounce, with a realistic year-end level
near $65 to $75. While extreme outcomes are possible, the central forecast
suggests silver will play a key role in both investment markets and global
industries in 2026.
‘Is
silver bubble about to burst?’: Rich Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki urges
investors to be patient
Rich Dad
Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki asked if “silver bubble is about to burst?” and
went on to warn of a looming correction, saying a wave of FOMO-driven buying
could end in a crash.
Written
by Arfa
Javaid December 29, 2025 08:04
IST
Rich
Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki has made a bold prediction
about silver. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), he has offered a
bullish outlook on the precious metal, predicting that prices could reach $200
in 2026.
‘Silver
$200 next?’ predicts Robert Kiyosaki
“Silver
breaks $80.00,” he said on X, before adding, “$200 next?”
‘Silver
will go through $100 in 2026’
In yet
another post, he asked, “Silver bubble about to burst?” He went on to warn of a
looming correction, saying a wave of FOMO-driven buying could end in a crash.
“FOMO Fear of Missing Out MANIA. Crash is coming.”
Kiyosaki,
78, admitted that silver has long been one of his preferred assets, revealing
that he made his first purchase of the metal 60 years ago in 1965.
----Despite warning of volatility, he
remained bullish on the metal’s long-term outlook. “I believe silver will go
through $100 in 2026….possibly $200 an ounce,” he predicted.
Kiyosaki
further shared one key thing that is important for smart investors – that is,
“patience”. “Yet remember my Rich Dad’s lesson: ‘Your profit is made when you
buy….NOT when you sell.’”
‘Silver
is hotter than gold’
On
December 27, he predicted that silver was on track to break the $80 mark and
called “silver is hotter than gold”. He also said that investors who had
patiently accumulated silver will finally see the rewards.
----Robert
Kiyosaki has been betting big on silver for a long time now. He had earlier
said, “Fake $ will continue to lose purchasing power as silver goes to $200 in
2026.”
On
November 10, he predicted that the “next stop” for silver will be $70. At the
time, silver prices were hovering just above $50. On December 23, silver
finally crossed the $70 mark.
On the
first day of November, he warned of an impending “massive crash” that could
wipe out millions. He even shared a tip for investors to “protect themselves”
by holding certain assets. Guess what they are? Well, they are precious metals
and cryptocurrency.
“Silver,
gold, Bitcoin, Ethereum investors will protect you,” he had said.
12:30 PM GMT 28 December 2025
Will the gold and silver markets declare
Force Majeure on Monday, opting for cash settlement of futures and ETFs at a
price of their own choosing? Obviously at a price favourable to them, not their
suckers muppets investors?
With Asian markets soon to open, stay tuned for Monday updates.
Bullion market gears up for ‘Silver Thursday’ as
CME Group raises margin, cuts limits
The white precious metal price tops $79 an
ounce; CME hikes initial margin on March futures to $25,000
By Subramani Ra
Mancombu Updated - December 28, 2025 at 11:30 AM.
With silver prices topping $79 an ounce
and gaining 18 per cent last week, the trade wonders if it would witness
another “Silver Thursday” or “Silver Rule 7” will have an impact after the
US-based CME Group has come up with new regulations.
On December 26 (Friday), the CME Group,
which operates major derivatives exchanges such as CME, COMEX, CBOT and NYMEX,
announced it was imposing a $25,000 initial margin for March 2026 silver
derivative contracts. Earlier, it was imposing $20,000 margin.
If investors do not have the required
amount in their accounts by Monday, their positions will be liquidated. In
addition, CME has lowered position limits. Traders said the CME was trying to
protect those who had gone short (selling without stocks on hand) in the
futures market.
Technical vacuum
“The CME is creating a technical vacuum
designed to force you out of your positions,” said a trader. The impact of the
CME move was visible on the Shanghai Futures Exchange on Saturday, when silver
prices dropped to 19,184 Chinese yuan a kg ($77.38 an ounce) for March
contracts after rising to 19,209 yuan ($77.48).
The development comes amid fears of market
manipulation, but traders said the CME group has come back with its “Silver
Thursday” strategy.
During the weekend, silver ended at
$79.11, while March futures slipped lower to $77.19 from $79.7. In India,
silver ended the week in the Mumbai market at ₹2,32,100 a kg. On MCX, silver
closed at ₹2,40,935.
Silver has gained 174 per cent so far this
year, more than gold’s 73 per cent but a tad lower than platinum’s 180 per
cent. Traders said silver is reminding the trade of the events that unfolded in
the 1970s, when it soared to $50 an ounce.
When Hunts hunted silver
The only change is that its use has
expanded to electric vehicles (EVs), solar panels, electronics and the medical
sector. In the 1970s, the then US president Richard Nixon cut off the dollar’s
link with gold.
Hunt brothers, Nelson and William, decided
to take control of the silver market. They began mopping up silver at $2 an
ounce. They garnered a huge share of the market and airlifted silver bars to
Swiss vaults several times, which pushed up prices to $50 an ounce.
Then, jewellery manufacturers began
melting stocks to make money from rising silver, and many sold their family
silver. The problem resulted in a jeweller, Tiffany and Co, running a full page
advertisement in the New York Times criticising the
manipulation in the silver market.
The white precious metal’s price was
reined in after Comex (Commodity Exchange) stepped in to impose trade limits.
It led to prices nosediving by 50 per cent on a single day. It plunged to $10
from $50 in two months. It is recalled as “Silver Thursday”.
Move to curb at $75?
Similarly, in 2011, when silver hit $49.5
an ounce, the CME raised the margin five times within 10 days. It plunged
prices by 30 per cent in a couple of weeks.
A market analyst said on “X” (formerly
Twitter) that six global “powerful” financiers, including a CME official, had
decided to curb silver’s rise beyond $75 an ounce. However, physical traders
stepped in to counter the move.
The analyst said there were 41,000 call
options contracts at $75 “strike”, which means the precious metal has to be
delivered if prices top the level. The analyst said the fear was that there
could be demand for delivery for these option trades.
The volume involved is 200 million ounces,
whereas COMEX has an inventory of only 24.8 million ounces. This could only
result in silver bursting through to $100 an ounce.
Chinese curbs
According to traders, the Chinese
curbs on silver exports from January have begun to play out in the market. In
addition, for every ounce of physical silver available in the market, over 300
ounces have been sold.
Silver’s current phenomenal run is being
attributed to geopolitical crisis, lack of confidence in the dollar, tariff war
and concerns over the global economy. In addition, the market has been facing a
physical deficit since 2020, with a lack of new investments in the mining
sector.
Cable thieves cost £12m as they bring chaos to
London’s train network
28 December 2025
Detectives are warning cable thieves
bringing chaos to train and Eurostar services
their activities “will not be tolerated”, as the bill reached £12.1 million and
caused over 202,000 hours of delays.
British Transport
Police hit
out after one brazen offender, Frank Lane, 47, was jailed for stealing metal
from a railway depot in broad daylight.
The soaring value of raw materials such as
copper means wiring used to power the network has become a multi-million pound
haul for criminals.
Recently, the theft of signalling cable
near Shenfield for a second
consecutive weekend led to serious
disruption for travellers.
Passengers were urged not to travel on
Greater Anglia services between Essex and London Liverpool
Street and
the Elizabeth
line between
Stratford and Shenfield in October.
In June, thousands of Eurostar
passengers suffered severe
delays and cancellations on the London-Paris route after copper cables were
stolen.
In February, Liverpool Street to
Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, trains were blocked following a theft in the Hackney
Downs area.
So far in 2025, there have 102 incidents
of theft of live cable across the railway, causing 104,737 minutes of train
delays and costing £5.1million.
Last year, there were 108 cable thefts, Network Rail
said, causing 69,275 minutes of train delays and costing £3.3 m.
That represented a 48 per cent rise on
2023 when there were 73, 46,464 minutes of delays at a bill of £3.7m.
Network Rail added the near £2m increase
in costs compared to last year reflects the complexity of some incidents, some
of which occurred during peak periods on heavily congested routes.
A dedicated security team has been set up
to combat the scourge with better CCTV monitoring and cables that are harder to
steal and easier to identify.
A “dark fibre” intruder detection system
trialled in the Anglia region works by transforming existing optic cables into
a sort of listening device.
If it detect unusual vibrations such as
footsteps or digging, the tech sends a real-time alert to a control room.
In the most recent case, BTP said Lane
gained access to the Bedford railway depot through a pedestrian gate while
holding an angle grinder in full view of the depot’s CCTV camera.
He then approached a storage area, taking
a moment to identify which roll of cable to steal, before using the powered
tool on one of the highly sought-after drums.
After cutting it free, he then rolled the
metal out of the depot and down the street, into the back of a nearby white van
that had a false registration plate on it before driving away from the scene
just before 11am on October 5, 2023.
The cost of the roll of cable is estimated
at around £2,000, said PC Alex Charge after the defendant, of Church Lane,
Bedford, was sentenced at Cambridge Crown Court to 23 weeks imprisonment.
More
Cable thieves cost
£12m as they bring chaos to London’s train network
In other news.
Bankruptcies soar as companies grapple with
inflation, tariffs
December 27, 2927
Corporate bankruptcies surged in 2025,
rivaling levels not seen since the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession,
as import-dependent businesses absorbed the highest tariffs in decades.
At least 717 companies filed for
bankruptcy through November, according to data from S&P Global Market
Intelligence. That’s roughly 14 percent more than the same 11 months of 2024,
and the highest tally since 2010.
Companies cited inflation and interest
rates among the factors contributing to their financial challenges, as well as
Trump administration trade policies that have disrupted supply chains and
pushed up costs.
But in a shift from previous years, the
rise in filings is most apparent among industrials — companies tied to
manufacturing, construction and transportation. The sector has been hit hard by
President Donald Trump’s ever-fluid
tariff policies —
which he’s long insisted would revive American manufacturing. The manufacturing
sector lost more than 70,000 jobs in the one-year period ending in November,
federal data shows.
Consumer-oriented businesses with
“discretionary” products or services, such as fashion or home furnishings,
represented the second-largest group. This contingent usually tops the list and
includes many retailers, and its retrenchment is a signal that inflation-weary
consumers are prioritizing essentials.
The S&P data reflects both Chapter 11
and Chapter 7 filings. In the former, also known as a reorganization, the
business goes through a court-administered process to restructure its debts
while it continues to operate. Under Chapter 7, the company closes down and its
assets are sold off.
Economists and business experts say the
trade wars have pressured import-heavy businesses, which are reluctant to raise
prices by too much for fear of alienating consumers. The White House did not
respond to requests for comment.
Though inflation is currently lower than
many economists expected — prices climbed at an annual pace of 2.7
percent in
November — many businesses still are eating new costs themselves to hold the
line on prices for buyers, experts say. That’s leading to a certain culling of
the herd as already-fragile companies struggle to keep up.
“These companies are acutely aware of the
affordability crisis confronting the average American,” said Jeffrey
Sonnenfeld, a professor at Yale University’s school of management. “They are
doing their best to offset the cost of tariffs and higher interest rates but
can only do so much. Those with pricing power will pass on the costs over time
… others will fold.”
Among the total was a surge of “mega
bankruptcies,” or filings by companies with more than a $1 billion in assets,
during the first half of 2025. According to the economic consultancy
Cornerstone Research, there were 17 such bankruptcies from January through
June, the highest half-year number since the covid-19 outbreak in 2020.
Consumer discretionary businesses, including retailers At Home and Forever 21,
accounted for several of those filings.
Matt Osborn, a principal at Cornerstone
who authored the September report, said these large companies cited high
inflation and interest rates among the factors that have impinged on consumer
demand and made it harder to raise capital. Changing federal policies around
renewable energy and international trade also were contributors, he wrote.
Among industrials, bankruptcies spanned a
mix of manufacturers and suppliers, as well as transportation-oriented firms
and renewable energy companies. Many of those companies had specific
preexisting problems unrelated to tariffs and the economy.
Louisiana-based PosiGen is among several
residential solar companies that filed for Chapter 11, which it attributed to
changes in renewable energy policy. The Trump administration has deprioritized
the tax incentives that make solar panels more affordable to homeowners, as
well as imposed “steep tariffs on imported materials that are necessary to
construct solar projects, including solar modules, inverters, racking, and
structural steel,” the company said in a Nov. 25 filing in U.S.
Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Texas.
The effective tariff rate for imported
solar cells and panels climbed to roughly 20 percent after May 2025, compared
with less than 5 percent in prior years, according to federal data analyzed by
Jason Miller, a business professor at Michigan State University. U.S. solar
importers paid close to $70 million a month in import duties in the second half
of the year for the most common type of panel, Miller said.
“That places a lot of strain on cash flow,
especially for smaller importers,” Miller said. “You then combine this with
reduced federal incentives that have to be negatively impacting demand, and you
have a perfect storm for elevated rates of bankruptcy.”
More
Bankruptcies soar
as companies grapple with inflation, tariffs
Global Inflation/Stagflation/Recession
Watch.
Given
our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians,
inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
China's
industrial profits tumble at fastest pace in over a year
December
27, 2025 4:05 AM GMT Updated December 27, 2025
BEIJING,
Dec 27 (Reuters) - Profits at China's industrial firms in November fell at
their fastest pace in over a year, as weak domestic demand offset resilience in
exports in another sign of a stuttering economic recovery that backs calls for
additional policy stimulus.
Profits
fell 13.1% year-on-year in November, accelerating from a 5.5% drop in October,
according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data released on Saturday.
The sharper decline came despite better-than-expected goods exports and against
a backdrop of persistent factory-gate deflation, maintaining
pressure on policymakers to do more to address chronically soft household
consumption.
The
profit numbers are consistent with a broader cooling in economic activity in
the fourth quarter, mainly due to the drag from soft domestic demand, said Xu
Tianchen, senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Xu
said he remained cautiously optimistic about the outlook for industrial
profits.
"Profitability
will improve under 'anti-involution'" as firms scale back investment over
time, he said, adding that companies could also "earn more profits
overseas," albeit "at the cost of their global peers."
For
the first 11 months of the year, industrial profits rose 0.1% from a year
earlier, slowing from 1.9% growth in January–October, driven in part by a 47.3%
plunge in profits at the coal mining and washing industry.
Momentum
in the roughly $19 trillion economy eased toward year-end, though authorities
have yet to roll out new policy support.
China
observers say Beijing is taking some comfort from indicators suggesting that
the official 2025 growth target of around 5% is still achievable, while a
U.S.-China trade truce has also helped ease tensions. However, market
expectations centre on the need for further policy support next year to bolster
domestic demand and broad economic growth.
Against
a volatile and uncertain global backdrop, and amid continued structural
adjustment as industry shifts from old to new growth drivers, the recovery in
industrial firms' profitability still needs to be put on a firmer footing, NBS
Chief Statistician Yu Weining said in an accompanying statement.
China's
economy grew by just 2.5% to 3% in 2025, the Rhodium Group think
tank estimates, roughly half the pace implied by official data, driven by a
collapse in fixed-asset investment over the second half of the year.
More
China's industrial
profits tumble at fastest pace in over a year | Reuters
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue only occasionally when something of interest occurs.
Technology
Update.
With events happening fast in the
development of solar power and graphene, among other things, I’ve added this
section. Updates as they get reported.
So Long,
GPT-5. Hello, Qwen
In the AI boom, chatbots and GPTs come and go quickly. (Remember
Llama?) GPT-5 had a big year, but 2026 will be all about Qwen.
Dec 27, 2025 6:00 AM
On a drizzly and windswept afternoon this summer,
I visited the headquarters of Rokid, a startup developing smart glasses in
Hangzhou, China. As I chatted with engineers, their words were swiftly
translated from Mandarin to English, and then transcribed onto a tiny
translucent screen just above my right eye using one of the company’s new
prototype devices.
Rokid’s high-tech spectacles use Qwen, an open-weight large
language model developed by the Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba.
Qwen—full name 通义千问 or
Tōngyì Qiānwèn in Chinese—is not the best AI model around. OpenAI’s GPT-5, Google’s Gemini 3,
and Anthropic’s Claude often
score higher on benchmarks designed to gauge different dimensions of machine
cleverness. Nor is Qwen the first truly cutting-edge open-weight model, that
being Meta’s Llama,
which was released by the social media giant in 2023.
Yet Qwen, and other Chinese models—from DeepSeek, Moonshot AI,
Z.ai, and MiniMax—are increasingly popular because they are both very good and
very easy to tinker with. According
to HuggingFace, a company that provides access to AI models and code, downloads
of open Chinese models on its platform surpassed downloads for US ones in July
of this year. DeepSeek shook the world by releasing a cutting-edge large
language model with much less compute than US rivals, but OpenRouter, a
platform that routes queries to different AI models, says Qwen
has rapidly risen in popularity through the year to become the
second-most-popular open model in the world.
Qwen can do most things you’d want from an advanced AI model. For
Rokid’s users, this might include identifying products snapped by a built-in
camera, getting directions from a map, drafting messages, searching the web,
and so on. Since Qwen can easily be downloaded and modified, Rokid hosts a
version of the model, fine-tuned to suit its purposes. It is also possible to
run a teensy version of Qwen on smartphones or other devices just in case the
internet connection goes down.
Before going to China I installed a small version of Qwen on
my MacBook Air and
used it to practice some basic Mandarin. For many purposes, modestly sized open
source models like Qwen are just as good as the behemoths that live inside big
data centers.
The rise of Qwen and other Chinese open-weight models has
coincided with stumbles for some famous American AI models in the last 12
months. When Meta unveiled Llama 4 in April 2025, the model’s performance was a
disappointment, failing to reach the heights of popular benchmarks like LM
Arena. The slip left many developers looking for other open models to play
with.
When OpenAI unveiled its latest model, GPT-5, in August it also
underwhelmed. Some users complained of an oddly cold demeanor while others
spotted surprising simple errors. OpenAI released a less powerful open model
called gpt-oss the
same month, but Qwen and other Chinese models remain more popular because more
work is put into building and updating them, and because details of their
engineering are often published widely.
Hundreds of academic papers presented at NeurIPS, the premier AI
conference, used Qwen. “A lot of scientists are using Qwen because it's the
best open-weight model,” says Andy Konwinski, cofounder of the Laude Institute,
a nonprofit established to advocate for open US models.
The openness adopted by Chinese AI companies, which sees them
routinely publishing papers detailing new engineering and training tricks,
stands in stark contrast to the increasingly closed ethos of big US companies,
which seem afraid of giving away their intellectual property, Kowinski says.
A paper from
the Qwen team, detailing a way to enhance the intelligence of models during
training, was named as one of the best papers at NeurIPS this year.
More
So Long, GPT-5.
Hello, Qwen | WIRED
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
There may be a recession in stock prices, but not anything in
the nature of a crash.
Irving Fisher, economist September 1929.
No comments:
Post a Comment