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Japan’s Suzuki to Make ‘Flying Cars’ with SkyDrive

The logo of Suzuki Motor Corp. is pictured at the 45th Tokyo Motor Show in Tokyo, Japan October 25, 2017. (Reuters)
The logo of Suzuki Motor Corp. is pictured at the 45th Tokyo Motor Show in Tokyo, Japan October 25, 2017. (Reuters)
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Japan’s Suzuki to Make ‘Flying Cars’ with SkyDrive

The logo of Suzuki Motor Corp. is pictured at the 45th Tokyo Motor Show in Tokyo, Japan October 25, 2017. (Reuters)
The logo of Suzuki Motor Corp. is pictured at the 45th Tokyo Motor Show in Tokyo, Japan October 25, 2017. (Reuters)

Japanese automaker Suzuki Motor Corp said on Tuesday it had reached an agreement with SkyDrive Inc to make "flying cars".

The companies will use a Suzuki Group factory in central Japan to make electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and aim to begin production by around spring next year, Suzuki said in a statement.

SkyDrive will establish a wholly owned subsidiary to make the aircraft and Suzuki will help with preparations for the manufacturing, including securing talent, the automaker said.

Headquartered in the city of Toyota in central Japan, SkyDrive has trading house Itochu Corp, tech firm NEC Corp and a unit of energy company Eneos Holdings Inc among its main shareholders.

The two companies signed a deal in March last year to team up in research, development and marketing of flying cars.

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Chinese AI Startup DeepSeek Overtakes ChatGPT on Apple App Store

ChatGPT logo is seen in this illustration taken, January 22, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
ChatGPT logo is seen in this illustration taken, January 22, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Chinese AI Startup DeepSeek Overtakes ChatGPT on Apple App Store

ChatGPT logo is seen in this illustration taken, January 22, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
ChatGPT logo is seen in this illustration taken, January 22, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Chinese startup DeepSeek's AI Assistant on Monday overtook rival ChatGPT to become the top-rated free application available on Apple's App Store in the United States.

Powered by the DeepSeek-V3 model, which its creators say "tops the leaderboard among open-source models and rivals the most advanced closed-source models globally", the artificial intelligence application has surged in popularity among US users since it was released on Jan. 10, according to app data research firm Sensor Tower.

The milestone highlights how DeepSeek has left a deep impression on Silicon Valley, upending widely held views about US primacy in AI and the effectiveness of Washington's export controls targeting China's advanced chip and AI capabilities, Reuters reported.

AI models from ChatGPT to DeepSeek require advanced chips to power their training. The Biden administration has since 2021 widened the scope of bans designed to stop these chips from being exported to China and used to train Chinese firms' AI models.

However, DeepSeek researchers wrote in a paper last month that the DeepSeek-V3 used Nvidia's H800 chips for training, spending less than $6 million.

Although this detail has since been disputed, the claim that the chips used were less powerful than the most advanced Nvidia products Washington has sought to keep out of China, as well as the relatively cheap training costs, has prompted US tech executives to question the effectiveness of tech export controls.

Little is known about the company behind DeepSeek, a small Hangzhou-based startup founded in 2023, when search engine giant Baidu released the first Chinese AI large-language model.

Since then, dozens of Chinese tech companies large and small have released their own AI models, but DeepSeek is the first to be praised by the US tech industry as matching or even surpassing the performance of cutting-edge US models.