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Vampire Esports Soar to PUBG MOBILE World Invitational Triumph at Riyadh's Gamers8

Vampire Esports are crowned PUBG MOBILE World Invitational (PMWI) champions at Gamers8 in Riyadh. (Gamers8)
Vampire Esports are crowned PUBG MOBILE World Invitational (PMWI) champions at Gamers8 in Riyadh. (Gamers8)
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Vampire Esports Soar to PUBG MOBILE World Invitational Triumph at Riyadh's Gamers8

Vampire Esports are crowned PUBG MOBILE World Invitational (PMWI) champions at Gamers8 in Riyadh. (Gamers8)
Vampire Esports are crowned PUBG MOBILE World Invitational (PMWI) champions at Gamers8 in Riyadh. (Gamers8)

Gamers8, the biggest esports and gaming event worldwide, saw Vampire Esports crowned PUBG MOBILE World Invitational (PMWI) champions at Boulevard Riyadh City on Saturday after an epic tournament victory, reported the Saudi Press Agency.

The team from Thailand claimed $500,000 of the total $2 million prize pool after scoring 220 points. That points total was enough to edge out homegrown heroes Team Falcons from Saudi Arabia, who scored 197 points, into second place.

Team Falcons’ exploits earned them $300,000, while the 180 points scored by Stalwart Esports, from Mongolia, claimed third spot and $160,000. The MVP award, and with it $10,000, also went to Stalwart Esports – with star performer Action leading the individual rankings from day one of the tournament on Thursday right up until Saturday’s conclusion.

Vampire Esports Leader Rvenclaw said: “This is the greatest achievement of our lives. It was our team goal to come here and win, and we are so delighted to have done so. We really encouraged each other to win.”

Rvenclaw added: “The Esports Arena at Boulevard Riyadh City is a great venue and the fans created a great atmosphere. It was a great honor to be here in Riyadh and we have really enjoyed our time in Saudi Arabia – it is a beautiful country. We have really enjoyed the culture here; the buildings are beautiful, the food has been awesome, and the people have been very welcoming.”

Asked if Team Vampires had a message for the young gamers of Saudi Arabia who wish to follow in their footsteps, Rvenclaw replied: “If you want to be a professional esports player, you must have the self-discipline to be able to study, practice and do your homework. When you see the best players in the world right now, they all have self-discipline and keep on improving. This is what makes you win and makes money for you and your family!”

The second annual PMWI tournament marks the fifth and final phase of the historic Professional Esports calendar at Gamers8, which is being organized by the Saudi Esports Federation.

Split into two parts, the main tournament welcomed 17 regional champions and one homegrown representative. The Afterparty Showdown – the week two tournament taking place from August 18-20 – will see teams competing for the remaining $1 million on offer.

The Afterparty Showdown line-up will comprise the top five teams from week one – the aforementioned Vampire Esports, Team Falcons, and Stalwart Esports, as well as Nigma Galaxy, who hail from the UAE and India, and DWG Kia from South Korea – alongside six teams chosen from different regions, and one given a special invitation to compete.

Faisal bin Hamran, Head of Esports at the Saudi Esports Federation, said: “The PUBG MOBILE World Invitational at Gamers8 witnessed high enthusiasm from the participating teams, the fans present at the Esports Arena at Boulevard Riyadh City, and the tournament followers on Gamers8 channels being broadcast live in eight languages.

“This is our fifth tournament of the Gamers8 season, and the PMWI only adds to the glittering roster of elite action that we have been delighted – and privileged – to have witnessed this summer. I congratulate all the participating teams, especially those who qualified for the Afterparty Showdown that will be held next week.”

Organized by the Saudi Esports Federation, Gamers8, the biggest esports and gaming event worldwide, runs daily throughout this summer until September 8 at a purpose-built venue at Boulevard Riyadh City. Elite esports tournaments are featuring alongside a series of big-name concerts, festivals, shows, and fun-filled activities for all ages.

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Technology

SDAIA Showcases Saudi Arabia’s AI Governance Model at UN Session in Geneva

The Saudi Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence (SDAIA)
The Saudi Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence (SDAIA)
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SDAIA Showcases Saudi Arabia’s AI Governance Model at UN Session in Geneva

The Saudi Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence (SDAIA)
The Saudi Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence (SDAIA)

The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) participated in the 29th session of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development, held in Geneva from April 20 to 24. Under the theme "Science, Technology, and Innovation in the Age of AI," the session gathered global representatives from governments, international organizations, and the private sector.

During the summit, SDAIA presented the Saudi model for regulating and developing the AI sector, highlighting the Kingdom's leadership in data governance and the creation of reliable AI systems. SDAIA emphasized Saudi Arabia's active role in shaping international governance frameworks and its commitment to utilizing AI to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030.

Coinciding with the Year of AI 2026, this participation reinforces the Kingdom’s position as a global hub for emerging technologies.

By sharing national expertise and expanding international cooperation, SDAIA continues to support the adoption of responsible AI practices, aligning with Saudi Vision 2030 to build an integrated national system driven by data and innovation.

Technology

China's DeepSeek Releases Long-awaited New AI Model

A man takes photos of a DeepSeek display at a shopping mall in Hangzhou, in China's eastern Zhejiang province on April 23, 2026. (Photo by CN-STR / AFP)
A man takes photos of a DeepSeek display at a shopping mall in Hangzhou, in China's eastern Zhejiang province on April 23, 2026. (Photo by CN-STR / AFP)
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China's DeepSeek Releases Long-awaited New AI Model

A man takes photos of a DeepSeek display at a shopping mall in Hangzhou, in China's eastern Zhejiang province on April 23, 2026. (Photo by CN-STR / AFP)
A man takes photos of a DeepSeek display at a shopping mall in Hangzhou, in China's eastern Zhejiang province on April 23, 2026. (Photo by CN-STR / AFP)

Chinese startup DeepSeek released a new artificial intelligence model with "drastically reduced" costs Friday, more than a year after it stunned the world with a low-cost reasoning model that matched the capabilities of US rivals.

The AI race has intensified the rivalry between China and the United States, with the White House on Thursday accusing Chinese entities of a massive effort to steal artificial intelligence technology. Beijing called the claim "baseless".

Hangzhou-based DeepSeek burst onto the scene in January last year with a generative AI chatbot, powered by its R1 reasoning model, that upended assumptions of US dominance in the strategic sector.

DeepSeek-V4 "features an ultra-long context", the company said in a statement on social media platform WeChat, hailing it as "world-leading... with drastically reduced compute (and) memory costs" in a separate announcement on X.

V4 supports a context length of one million "tokens" -- small components of text including words or punctuation -- putting it on par with Google's Gemini.

Context length determines how much input a model is able to absorb to help it complete tasks.

The new V4 is released as two versions, DeepSeek-V4-Pro and DeepSeek-V4-Flash, with the latter being "a more efficient and economical choice" because it has smaller parameters.

In terms of "world knowledge", a benchmark for reasoning, V4-Pro trails only the latest Gemini model, DeepSeek said.

A "preview version" of the open source model is now available, the company said, without indicating when a final version would be released.

Experts say V4's arrival marks an "inflection point" in terms of hardware and cost.

"This addresses the long-standing issues of slower performance and higher costs associated with long context lengths, marking a genuine inflection point for the industry," Zhang Yi, the founder of tech research firm iiMedia, told AFP.

"For end users, this will bring widespread, accessible benefits. For instance, if ultra-long context support becomes a standard feature, long-text processing is expected to move beyond high-end research labs and enter mainstream commercial applications," he said.

V4-Pro has 1.6 trillion parameters while the V4-Flash has 284 billion parameters, which refine models' decision-making ability.

The model has also been "optimized" for popular AI Agent products such as Claude Code, OpenClaw, OpenCode and CodeBuddy, the DeepSeek statement said.

It can also run on chips manufactured by Chinese tech giant Huawei, the company added.

Huawei -- sanctioned by the US since 2019 over national security -- said in a statement Friday that the full range of its Ascend SuperPoD products are supporting DeepSeek's V4 series.

DeepSeek's latest release is a "milestone" for Chinese firms, said veteran AI industry analyst Max Liu.

"It's a good thing for the entire domestic AI industry. It can provide better models for domestic users and we can now expect a lot more things -- more products (and a) more competitive market," he told AFP.

"This is no less shocking than when DeepSeek first came out" if its new model indeed matches the performance of leading models from Western labs, he added.

Last year's so-called "DeepSeek shock" sparked a sell-off of AI-related shares and a reckoning on business strategy in what was also described as a "Sputnik moment" for the industry.

The chatbot performed at a similar level to ChatGPT and other top American offerings, but the company said it had taken significantly less computing power to develop.

However, its sudden popularity raised questions over data privacy and censorship, with the chatbot often refusing to answer questions on sensitive topics such as the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.

DeepSeek's AI tools have been widely adopted by Chinese municipalities and healthcare institutions as well as the financial sector and other businesses.

This has been partly driven by DeepSeek's decision to make its systems open source, with their inner workings public -- in contrast to the proprietary models sold by OpenAI and other Western rivals.

But the White House has accused Chinese firms of vying to "steal" American technology, ahead of an expected summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Beijing next month.

"The US has evidence that foreign entities, primarily in China, are running industrial-scale distillation campaigns to steal American AI," Trump's science and technology chief advisor Michael Kratsios said in a post on X.

Distillation is a common practice within AI development, often used by companies to create cheaper, smaller versions of their own models.

"The US claims are entirely baseless," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a news conference in Beijing. "They are a slanderous smear against the achievements of China's artificial intelligence industry."

Technology

Meta Slashes 8,000 Jobs, or 10% of its Workforce, as Microsoft Offers Buyouts

Meta co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg (Reuters)
Meta co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg (Reuters)
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Meta Slashes 8,000 Jobs, or 10% of its Workforce, as Microsoft Offers Buyouts

Meta co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg (Reuters)
Meta co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg (Reuters)

Meta is laying off about 8,000 workers, or about 10% of its workforce, the company said Thursday as it continues to ramp up spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure and highly paid AI-expert hires.

The company said it was making the cuts for the sake of efficiency and to allow new investments in parts of its business, as first reported by Bloomberg, which also said the company will leave about 6,000 jobs unfilled.

Also Thursday, Microsoft said it was offering voluntary buyouts to thousands of its US employees, The Associated Press reported.

The software giant plans to make the offers in early May to about 8,750 people, or 7% of its US workforce, according to two people familiar with the plan who were not authorized to speak about it publicly.

While an alternative to the sudden layoffs removing tech workers from peers like Meta and Oracle, the savings are likely tied to a similar industry upheaval that is requiring huge spending on the costs of artificial intelligence.

Meta has already warned investors that its 2026 expenses will grow significantly — to the range of $162 billion to $169 billion — driven by infrastructure costs and employee compensation, particularly for the artificial intelligence experts it’s been hiring at eye-popping pay levels.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives welcomed Meta’s cuts in a note to investors Thursday.

He said he sees it as part of a strategy of using AI tools to “automate tasks that once required large teams, allowing the company to streamline operations and reduce costs while maintaining productivity driving an increased need for a leaner operating structure.”

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, has spent billions of dollars operating an ever-expanding global network of data centers powering cloud computing services, AI systems and its own suite of productivity tools, including the AI assistant Copilot.

CNBC reported earlier Thursday on a memo from Microsoft's chief people officer, Amy Coleman, announcing the voluntary retirement plan.

“Our hope is that this program gives those eligible the choice to take that next step on their own terms, with generous company support,” Coleman wrote, according to CNBC.