Oh, So AI can break a $13 billion exclusive deal? 🔓 - Edition 005

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Edition Summary

Microsoft and OpenAI rewrite their $13B deal to drop exclusivity, China blocks Meta from buying AI startup Manus for $2B, and DeepSeek V4 ships with million-token context trained entirely on Chinese chips.

Hero Image: Microsoft and OpenAI break exclusivity

Today: Microsoft and OpenAI rewrite their $13B deal to drop exclusivity, China blocks Meta from buying AI startup Manus for $2B, and DeepSeek V4 ships with million-token context trained entirely on Chinese chips.

💬 Daily Quote

“Most people collect AI tools. The ones getting results are the ones who picked one and went deep.”

📌 TL;DR

🏆 LLM Leaderboard `#AI` `#Models`

The most popular models this week.

1. MiMo-V2-Pro (Xiaomi) #1 Popularity

2. Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Anthropic) #2 Popularity

3. Qwen 3.6 Plus Preview (Alibaba) #3 Popularity

4. GPT-5.5 xhigh (OpenAI) #1 Intelligence

5. Qwen 3.6 Plus (Alibaba) #5 Popularity

The split between what scores highest and what gets used most has never been wider. GPT-5.5 tops the intelligence rankings, but Xiaomi’s MiMo-V2-Pro leads actual usage with 4.65 trillion tokens a week, more than double Claude Sonnet 4.6 in second place. Chinese models now hold over 45% of all OpenRouter traffic. Developers are choosing cost and speed over raw benchmark scores.

Source: OpenRouter Rankings + Artificial Analysis Benchmarks

📰 Oh, So AI did this `#AI` `#News`

1. Microsoft and OpenAI rewrite their $13B deal. Exclusivity is gone.

Announced Sunday. OpenAI can now serve customers on any cloud provider, including Amazon and Google. Microsoft’s license to OpenAI’s tech becomes non-exclusive and runs through 2032. Revenue share payments get capped. The AGI clause, which could have frozen the partnership, is removed. Per CNBC. This means the two biggest names in AI are now free to compete with each other directly. If you build on OpenAI’s API, expect more hosting options and possibly lower pricing as cloud providers fight for your workload. Read more at CNBC #AI #News

Why you care: OpenAI products will soon run on Google, Amazon, and other clouds. More hosting choices and likely lower costs for anyone building with their API.

2. China blocks Meta’s $2B acquisition of AI agent startup Manus

Beijing killed the deal on Sunday after a months-long probe. Manus built an AI agent that handles tasks on your behalf, things like booking, browsing, and filling forms. Founded in China, relocated to Singapore in mid-2025. Two co-founders were banned from leaving the country during the investigation. Meta planned to fold Manus’s tech into Meta AI. Per TechCrunch. Read more at TechCrunch #AI #News

Why you care: If you build or invest in cross-border AI, this makes it clear: governments will step in when AI tech crosses borders they want to keep closed.

3. DeepSeek V4 drops with million-token context, trained entirely on Chinese chips

Released April 24 in two versions. V4-Pro: 1.6 trillion parameters, 49 billion active. V4-Flash: 284 billion parameters, 13 billion active. Both handle 1 million tokens of context. V4-Pro uses just 27% of the compute and 10% of the memory of its predecessor for long-context tasks. Trained on Huawei Ascend and Cambricon chips, no NVIDIA hardware. Leads all open models in math, coding, and agentic benchmarks. Per MIT Technology Review. Read more at MIT Technology Review #AI #News

Why you care: China's AI stack, from chips to models, now works without US hardware. If you use open-source models, V4 gives you million-token context at a fraction of GPT-5.5's cost.

4. Google unveils TPU 8t and TPU 8i, two chips built for agents

Announced at Cloud Next. TPU 8t handles training: scales to 9,600 chips per cluster, 3x compute over the last generation. TPU 8i handles inference: 288GB HBM, 3x on-chip memory, 80% better price-performance. Both ship later this year. Per Google Cloud Blog. Read more at Google Blog #AI #News

Why you care: If you run AI workloads at scale, Google is pricing these to compete with NVIDIA directly. Serve twice the users at the same cost.

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🪄 Oh, So AI can do that?! `#AI` `#Tools`

1. DeepSeek V4 API goes live with million-token context

Both V4-Pro and V4-Flash are available now. Works with both OpenAI and Anthropic SDK formats, so no code rewrites needed. V4-Pro scores highest among open models on agentic coding benchmarks. If you build apps that process large documents, codebases, or long conversations, this gives you near-GPT quality at a fraction of the price. Read more at DeepSeek API Docs #AI #Tools

Why you care: Feed a million tokens to an open-source model via API, at a fraction of GPT-5.5 pricing, with zero code changes if you already use the OpenAI SDK format.

2. Gmail gets AI Overviews and thread summaries, powered by Gemini 3

Rolling out to Business and Enterprise users from April 27. Search your inbox and get an AI-generated overview instead of a list of emails. Open a 50-reply thread and get a one-paragraph summary of what happened. AI Ultra subscribers also get AI Inbox, which splits your email into suggested to-dos and topics to catch up on. Per Google Blog. Read more at Google Blog #AI #Tools

Why you care: If your inbox has 200 unread emails, Gmail now tells you what matters in one summary instead of making you open every thread.

3. EE TV launches AI search and Mood Matcher to kill doombrowsing

Launched April 27. Instead of typing exact show names, describe what you want: “something lighthearted with time travel.” Results pull from live TV, on-demand, and streaming apps. Mood Matcher asks how you feel and picks content from there. Per Broadband TV News. Read more at Broadband TV News #AI #Tools

Why you care: If you spend 20 minutes every evening scrolling for something to watch, mood-based search cuts that to about 30 seconds.

⚡ Oh, So I can do this `#SEO` `#WebDev`

1. Google Search rankings are moving again, and nobody confirmed an update

Multiple trackers flagged new volatility starting April 23, two full weeks after the March 2026 core update officially ended on April 8. No announcement from Google. US sites seeing bigger shifts than Europe. Could be late recalibration or quiet adjustments rolling through. Per Search Round Table. Read more at Search Round Table #SEO

Why you care: If your traffic dipped this past week, this unconfirmed movement is likely the cause. Do not panic, but watch your numbers closely.

2. Content depth and readability now matter more than backlinks for AI citations

New data from Position Digital: when AI engines decide what to cite in their answers, they check word count, sentence structure, and how easy it is to read. Not traffic. Not backlinks. If you want your content showing up inside AI answers, write longer, clearer pieces with real depth. Read more at Position Digital #SEO

Why you care: Ranking on Google is one game. Getting cited by AI is a different one. Depth and clarity are what gets your content into AI answers now.

3. YouTube and TikTok are search engines now. Treat them like it.

TikTok handles over 40% of Gen Z search queries. YouTube remains the second-largest search engine globally. Per Marketer Milk’s 2026 trends report: stop treating video as a social play and start treating it as SEO. Write video titles, descriptions, and transcripts with the same care you give blog posts. Read more at Marketer Milk #SEO #WebDev

Why you care: If you only do text-based SEO, you are ignoring the platforms where nearly half of younger users go to search first.

🎣 Top Hook Ideas

Stuck on what to post today? These hooks are pulled straight from this edition's stories. Grab one, rewrite it in your voice, and share it on LinkedIn or X. One less thing to think about.

Hook 1: Microsoft and OpenAI just rewrote their $13 billion deal. OpenAI can now use Google and Amazon’s cloud. The exclusive lock is gone. Here is what changes for developers. #AI

Hook 2: China just killed Meta’s $2 billion acquisition of an AI startup. Two co-founders were banned from leaving the country. The AI cold war just got personal. #AI

Hook 3: DeepSeek V4 was trained entirely on Chinese chips. Not a single NVIDIA GPU. The US chip ban was supposed to slow China down. It did not. #AI

Hook 4: Gmail just got an AI brain. Search your inbox and get a summary instead of a list. Here is how to turn it on and what to watch out for. #Tools

Hook 5: Google rankings started moving again on April 23, two weeks after the last update “ended.” If your traffic dipped this week, this is probably why. #SEO

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Curated with ❤️ ByHarshal

Creative Director orchestrating AI workflows for founders' teams. Writing about productivity, design, and AI systems.

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