DeepSeek's AI model propelled the Chinese firm to fourth in LiveBench's global LLM rankings amid the US-China AI race. Chinese tech narrows the domestic gap, but monetization barriers persist.

Shanghai-based AI firm, MiniMax, has launched an open-source reasoning model, MiniMax-M1, challenging rivals DeepSeek and others in performance and cost.

The open-source M1 boasts a record-breaking context window and lean training budget, promising enterprise-grade reasoning without hyperscaler resources — and reshaping the AI playing field.