Unitree Drops “Superman” — A Robot That Breaks Human Limits
On August 17, Unitree Robotics officially unveiled its latest creation, cheekily named “Superman.” And honestly, the name isn’t just hype — the company claims this humanoid robot smashes every human performance record we thought was untouchable.With an 0.85-meter leg span, it can jump 2 meters straight up from a standstill and hit a top speed of 12.66 m/s — that’s faster than any human alive in both vertical leap and sprint. The wild part? The entire machine was designed and built in just over three months, and the team says there’s still tons of room for upgrades in the coming months.
Alibaba Rolls Out AI Music Model “HappyShrimp”
On August 17, Alibaba dropped its brand-new AI music model, HappyShrimp (Chinese name: 快乐虾米). On day one, the platform already locked in a strategic partnership with Taihe Music Group. Going forward, the two companies will dig deep into building out the music industry ecosystem, co-developing AI music platforms, and creating fresh opportunities for musicians to collaborate and create. Starting today, HappyShrimp’s PC web version is live simultaneously in both China and international markets.
DeepSeek API Gets a Price Hike — With Off-Peak Discounts
As of August 17,DeepSeek APIprices officially went up,but here’s the smart part: they’re rolling out peak-and-off-peak pricing, so off-peak hours cost just half of what peak hours do.Peak hours are Beijing time 9:00-12:00 and 14:00-18:00 — everything else is off-peak, so you can save a chunk of change if you time your calls right.
Alphabet Set for Historic Bond Debut in Australia, Targeting ~$3.6B
On August 17, reports confirm that Google’s parent company Alphabet is gearing up for its very first bond issuance in Australia, aiming to raise around AU$5 billion (roughly US$3.6 billion). The offering could include bonds across four maturities, with the longest potentially stretching to 20 years. Initial pricing guidance is expected to be revealed as early as August 18 local time. This move follows Alphabet’s massive US$25 billion bond sale in the US dollar market earlier this month — and they’ve also tapped Swiss franc, British pound, euro, Canadian dollar, and yen markets this year.
Stripe Nails Down Deal to Buy AI Startup OpenRouter for $7B+
On August 16 local time, sources with direct knowledge of the matter revealed that payments giant Stripe has finalized an agreement to acquire AI startup OpenRouter for north of $7 billion. The exact final price tag could still shift slightly before everything’s signed and sealed.
AI Video Platform Higgsfield Raises $400M in Fresh Funding Round
In another major funding headline, AI video generation platform Higgsfield just closed a massive $400 million funding round, with heavy hitters like DST Global, Goldman Sachs, Liberty Global, and Intel’s investment arm all jumping in. This latest infusion pushes Higgsfield’s valuation to a staggering $5.4 billion. The company’s annualized revenue for August this year has already hit $700 million — a mind-blowing 34x jump from just one year ago, when it was barely pulling in $20 million.
Alibaba’s Qwen3.8-27B Goes Viral — 1M Downloads in Just 2 Days
On August 17, Alibaba’s open-source Qwen3.8-27B model crossed the 1 million download mark just two days after going public. The community has already contributed over 500 quantized versions of the model, pushing total related downloads past 5 million. It’s now sitting pretty at the top of Hugging Face’s global model trend charts.
