FRONTIER AI

OpenAI's GPT-5 launch consolidates a confusing product lineup

OpenAI officially launched GPT-5 yesterday as a "unified system" that automatically routes between fast responses and deeper reasoning. CEO Sam Altman positioned the release as moving from "talking to a college student" with GPT-4 to "talking to a PhD-level expert" with GPT-5.

The launch follows multiple model releases, including the o-series reasoning models and GPT-4.5, which created what Altman called "a very confusing mess" of model selection. GPT-5 uses an automatic router that determines whether to provide quick responses or engage longer reasoning chains.

Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.1 a couple of days prior to OpenAI's announcement, positioning it as superior for coding and research tasks. The timing reflects intensifying competition as OpenAI works to maintain its position with nearly 700 million weekly ChatGPT users.

Free users get access to GPT-5 with undisclosed usage caps, after which the system falls back to GPT-5 mini. ChatGPT Plus subscribers ($20/month) receive the same models with "significantly higher" usage limits. Pro tier users ($200/month) get unlimited GPT-5 access plus GPT-5-pro and GPT-5-thinking variants, though paid users can still manually select specific models if desired.

API developers can access three versions with different pricing:

• GPT-5: $1.25 input / $10 output per million tokens

• GPT-5 mini: $0.25 input / $2 output per million tokens

• GPT-5 nano: $0.05 input / $0.40 output per million tokens

GPT-5 achieves state-of-the-art coding performance with 74.9% on SWE-Bench Verified, narrowly beating Claude Opus 4.1's 74.5% and significantly outperforming Gemini 2.5 Pro's 59.6%. It also scored 94.6% on AIME 2025 mathematical reasoning. However, on Humanity's Last Exam, GPT-5 Pro's 42% trails Grok 4 Heavy's leading 44.4%. GPT-5 shows 26% fewer factual errors than GPT-4o and 65% fewer than o3 when using GPT-5-thinking.

GPT-5's context window expanded to 256,000 tokens, up from 200,000 in the previous model, but trailing far behind Llama 4 Scout’s 10m tokens and MiniMax-Text-01’s 4m tokens. Pro users will connect Gmail, Google Contacts and Google Calendar through OpenAI's Connectors system using Model Context Protocol (MCP).

The model introduces "safe completions," replacing binary "refuse or comply" responses with nuanced answers for dual-use queries. Instead of simply declining potentially harmful requests, GPT-5 provides helpful high-level information that stays within safety boundaries, as demonstrated during the launch event when asked about igniting materials for legitimate purposes versus harmful ones.

GPT-5's unified approach addresses real user confusion while delivering measurable performance improvements, particularly in coding, where the benchmarks show clear advances. The automatic routing system represents a pragmatic solution to OpenAI's proliferating model variants, though Pro users retaining manual selection somewhat undermines the simplification narrative.

The competitive pressure is evident in the timing and features. Safe completions and reduced hallucinations address longstanding criticisms, while the context window expansion, though substantial, leaves OpenAI trailing Google and others. The Google app integrations signal OpenAI's push beyond chat toward productivity workflows.

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POLICY

Trump demands Intel CEO resignation over China ties

President Donald Trump yesterday demanded the immediate resignation of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan in a Truth Social post. "The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately," Trump wrote. "There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!" The attack on Intel's leadership comes just months after the chipmaker's board forced out previous CEO Pat Gelsinger in December over frustration with his costly turnaround efforts.

Tan, who took over in March 2025, faces scrutiny over his extensive investments in Chinese companies. Reuters reported that Tan invested at least $200 million in hundreds of Chinese advanced manufacturing and semiconductor firms, some with links to China's military and technology sector, between 2012 and 2024.

The pressure intensified after Republican Senator Tom Cotton wrote to Intel's board expressing "concerns about the security and integrity of Intel's operations." Cotton highlighted Tan's financial ties to Chinese entities as potential national security risks for a company receiving billions in U.S. government support under the CHIPS Act.

Intel's stock fell as much as 5% in premarket trading following Trump's Truth Social post. The company defended Tan, stating Intel and its leadership are "deeply committed to advancing U.S. national and economic security interests."

Trump's demand reflects his broader semiconductor strategy, having threatened 100% tariffs on imported computer chips unless companies manufacture domestically. The approach aims to reduce U.S. dependence on Asian suppliers, particularly Taiwan, which produces most of the world's advanced semiconductors. Trump has framed domestic chip production as essential for national security and economic independence, arguing that reliance on foreign suppliers creates vulnerabilities during geopolitical tensions. Intel received nearly $8 billion in federal grants under Biden's CHIPS Act, making executive leadership particularly sensitive to national security concerns.

The controversy threatens to further destabilize Intel, which has struggled to compete with Nvidia and other rivals in the AI boom while attempting an ambitious domestic manufacturing expansion.

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VC

SoftBank's $2.9b win underscores Masayoshi Son's greatest miss

SoftBank Group swung to a $2.9 billion quarterly profit, more than doubling analyst expectations as Masayoshi Son's Vision Fund logged gains from AI-focused investments, including Coupang and Symbotic. For the 67-year-old founder who has built his fortune on audacious technology bets, this latest success carries a familiar sting.

Son's investing philosophy was forged by his most legendary gamble — a $20 million investment in Jack Ma's Alibaba in 2000 after a six-minute meeting when the Chinese e-commerce startup had "no business plan and zero revenue." Son famously said he was swayed by Ma's "strong, shining eyes," securing a 34% stake that eventually became worth over $200 billion.

This gut-driven approach to transformative technologies has defined Son's career, but it also haunted his most painful exit.

• When the Vision Fund acquired a 4.9% stake in Nvidia for around $4 billion in 2017, the chip company was riding high selling graphics cards to cryptocurrency miners

• But when crypto crashed and Nvidia's stock plummeted 50% over four months in 2018, the Vision Fund was "forced to sell" its entire position to protect overall performance

• The fund disclosed in February 2019 that it had disposed of its entire holding worth $3.6 billion, banking a $3.3 billion profit

That same stake would be worth approximately $160-180 billion today, as Nvidia became the engine of the AI revolution. "I had to tearfully sell the shares," Son admitted to shareholders. "The fish that got away was big."

Son, who is now leading a $40 billion funding round for OpenAI and spearheading the $500 billion Stargate project, sold his Nvidia position just as the AI transformation he championed was taking shape.

LINKS

• Anthropic’s quiet edge in the AI talent war

• A single poisoned document could leak ‘secret’ data via ChatGPT

• OpenAI pays bonuses ranging up to millions to 1,000 researchers, engineers

• SoftBank’s $2.9b profits buoyed by Nvidia investment

• Samsung to produce image sensors for Apple’s iPhone in Texas

• Can data centers ever truly be green?

• Meta acquires AI audio startup WaveForms

• Tesla disbands Dojo supercomputer team in blow to AI effort

• Genie 3: Generate dynamic worlds that you can navigate in real time at 24 FPS

• GPT-5: OpenAI’s newest frontier model

• Gumloop: Automate any workflow with AI

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