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Mistral, the French AI startup, has released its largest model yet — a one-trillion-parameter system it's calling Le Chonk, officially named Mistral Large four. The company claims it's the most capable open-weight model outside of China, a significant benchmark in a field dominated by closed American systems. Whether that claim holds under scrutiny remains to be seen, but the release signals Mistral is not stepping back from the frontier race.
Meanwhile, Google is tightening access to its Gemini AI lineup. Starting October ninth, free users will be pushed down to the Flash Lite model, with standard Flash requiring a four ninety-nine monthly subscription. And even that paid tier is losing access to Gemini Pro. Google says improvements are coming, but for now this looks like a quiet but meaningful narrowing of what free users can actually do.
On the hardware side, Japanese firm Gigaphoton has unveiled a neon gas recycling system for its chip-making lasers, claiming a fifty percent recovery rate. Neon is a critical input for semiconductor lithography, and supply was badly disrupted by the war in Ukraine. A reliable recycling method could meaningfully reduce that vulnerability in the global chip supply chain.
That's your Tech Beat for today. Keep surfing. Tech Beat out.
