Minimax M2: open-source efficient coding model

Our 224th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!

Recorded on 10/31/2025

Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and co-hosted by Gavin Purcell (check out AI For Humans and AndThen!)

Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.com and/or hello@gladstone.ai

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In this episode:

• OpenAI completes its for-profit restructuring, redefining its relationship with Microsoft and securing future investments. Meanwhile, Qualcomm and other tech giants announce new AI chips aimed at competing with Nvidia and AMD, marking major advancements in AI hardware capabilities.
• Amazon and Google deepen their partnerships with Anthropic, providing extensive computing resources to enhance AI research and applications. These developments signal significant growth and competition in the AI industry.
• Major AI tools and models were released and updated, including Cursor 2.0, CLAUDE coding capabilities, and open-source options from Minimax. These new tools offer a range of functionalities for coding, design, and more.
• Legal battles around AI copyright issues persist, as OpenAI faces ongoing lawsuits from authors over text generation using copyrighted material. Universal Music Group settles a copyright suit with AI music startup UDO, transitioning to a licensed model for AI-generated music. This shift reflects broader challenges and adaptations in the AI-generated content space, where copyright and ethical usage remain highly contentious issues.

Timestamps:

• (00:00:10) Intro / Banter
• (00:02:44) News Preview
• Tools & Apps
• (00:03:44) Cursor 2.0 shifts to in-house AI with Composer model and parallel agents
• (00:07:44) Anthropic brings Claude Code to the web | TechCrunch
• (00:10:01) Microsoft's Mico is a 'Clippy' for the AI era | TechCrunch
• (00:14:20) Anthropic’s Claude catches up to ChatGPT and Gemini with upgraded memory features | The Verge
• (00:18:46) Canva launches its own design model, adds new AI features to the platform | TechCrunch
• (00:21:07) Elon Musk’s Grokipedia launches with AI-cloned pages from Wikipedia | The Verge
• Applications & Business
• (00:25:10) OpenAI completed its for-profit restructuring — and struck a new deal with Microsoft | The Verge
• (00:31:25) Qualcomm announces AI chips to compete with AMD and Nvidia
• (00:34:02) Amazon launches AI infrastructure project, to power Anthropic's Claude model | Reuters
• (00:38:52) Google and Anthropic announce cloud deal worth tens of billions
• (00:39:46) Google partners with Ambani's Reliance to offer free AI Pro access to millions of Jio users in India | TechCrunch
• Projects & Open Source
• (00:41:17) MiniMax Releases MiniMax M2: A Mini Open Model Built for Max Coding and Agentic Workflows at 8% Claude Sonnet Price and ~2x Faster - MarkTechPost
• (00:45:22) [2510.25741] Scaling Latent Reasoning via Looped Language Models
• (00:47:59) OpenAI’s gpt-oss-safeguard enables developers to build safer AI - Help Net Security
• Research & Advancements
• (00:49:51) [2510.15103] Continual Learning via Sparse Memory Finetuning
• (00:54:01) [2510.18091] Accelerating Vision Transformers with Adaptive Patch Sizes
• (00:57:46) [2510.18871] How Do LLMs Use Their Depth?
• Policy & Safety
• (01:01:07) AMD, Department of Energy announce $1 billion AI supercomputer partnership | The Verge
• (01:03:03)  
• Synthetic Media & Art
• (01:09:34) Universal partners with AI startup Udio after settling copyright suit | The Verge
• (01:16:04) OpenAI loses bid to dismiss part of US authors' copyright lawsuit | Reuters

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