Photo by Shawn Tung on Unsplash

Chinese Social Media Platform RedNote Releases Open-Source AI Model

• Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
• Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager

The Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu, known internationally as RedNote, released its first open-source large language model (LLM), called dots.llm1, on Friday. The company claimed the model matches the performance of the leading AI models in the tech industry.

In a rush? Here are the quick facts:

• RedNote launched a new open-source AI model called dots.llm1.
• The company claims its MoE system outperforms DeepSeek-V3 and Qwen2.5.
• The new model is open-source and available on Hugging Face.

According to the South China Morning Post , the AI model released by RedNote is a mixture-of-experts ( MoE ) system—an architecture that includes multiple specialized sub-networks, or “experts,” designed for greater efficiency and to rival the most advanced AI models currently on the market.

RedNote explained that its AI research team developed dots.llm1 in collaboration with its in-house Humane Intelligence Lab. The company has been recruiting experts with strong backgrounds in the humanities to make sure its technology can better simulate and understand human behavior.

The company claims that dots.llm1 outperforms regional competitors, including Alibaba’s Qwen2.5, and DeepSeek-V3. RedNote also developed Diandian, an AI research assistant, which includes a “deep research” function.

According to Reuters , unlike most American companies—such as Google and OpenAI—, Chinese firms are relying on open-source principles to showcase their technological capabilities and expand their global influence.

Users can download the model via Hugging Face and explore its technical specifications.

“The dots.llm1 model is a large-scale MoE model that activates 14B parameters out of a total of 142B parameters, delivering performance on par with state-of-the-art models,” states the company’s page on Hugging Face. “Leveraging our meticulously crafted and efficient data processing pipeline, dots.llm1 achieves performance comparable to Qwen2.5-72B after pretrained on 11.2T high-quality tokens without synthetic data.”

RedNote currently has around 300 million monthly active users and recently reached a $26 billion valuation. The company expects to launch its IPO later this year.

In January, RedNote gained significant popularity among American users as an alternative to TikTok amid the potential U.S. ban on the video-sharing platform.

Photo by Dima Solomin on Unsplash

Meta In Talks To Purchase Scale AI For More Than $10 Billion

• Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
• Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager

Meta is in talks to purchase the American data-annotation and AI–training startup Scale AI. The deal could surpass $10 billion, making it one of the largest private-sector investments in history.

In a rush? Here are the quick facts:

• Meta is negotiating a potential $10 billion acquisition of Scale AI.
• If the deal goes through, it would represent the largest private-sector tech investments of all times.
• Meta’s interest aligns with its growing focus on AI and defense tech.

According to an exclusive report shared by Bloomberg , anonymous sources familiar with the matter disclosed the potential deal, but added that the negotiations are not finalized yet and that the terms shared could change.

Scale AI currently provides data labeling services for Microsoft and OpenAI’smachine learning training. The startup was valued at $14 billion last year and, as reported by Bloomberg, was in discussions for a new funding round that could raise its valuation to $25 billion.

“Meta is not going anywhere in terms of its investments around AI,” said Tom Mackenzie, one of Bloomberg’s analysts. “They’ve pledged to invest at least $60 billion dollars in AI this year.”

Representatives from Meta and Scale AI declined to comment or provide further information about the potential deal.

The reasons behind Meta’s interest in such a large investment have not been disclosed. Experts have described it as a “rare” move, though both companies share an interest in defense technology, and Meta has been developing products for the U.S. military.

If the deal goes through, it would be one of the largest private company acquisitions of all time—surpassing OpenAI’s recently announced acquisition of io for $6.5 billion .

In the past few months, Scale AI has been going through significant changes. The company partnered with the government of Qatar to enhance public services with AI technologies in a 5-year agreement.

While the startup continues to grow and secure major deals, it is also under scrutiny. The U.S. Department of Labor announced a few weeks ago that Scale AI is under investigation for potential Fair Labor Standards Act violations, and has been previously accused of exploitation of Kenyan workers.