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China's artificial intelligence models may be just "months" behind U.S. and Western capabilities, Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind told CNBC. View More

In this articleGOOGGOOGLNVDABABA9988-HKFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT watch nowVIDEO52:3552:35The man behind Google's AI machine: Watch CNBC's interview with Demis HassabisThe Tech Download China's artificial intelligence models may be just "a matter of months" behind U.S. and Western capabilities, Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind told CNBC.The assessment from the head of one of the world's leading AI labs and a key driver behind Google's Gemini assistant, runs counter to views that have suggested China remains far behind. Speaking on CNBC's new podcast, The Tech Download, which launched on Friday, Hassabis said Chinese AI models are closer to U.S. and Western capabilities "than maybe we thought one or two years ago.""Maybe they're only a matter of months behind at this point," Hassabis told The Tech Download. About a year ago, Chinese AI lab DeepSeek came out with a model that sent shockwaves through markets because of its strong performance that was built on less-advanced chips and at a lower cost than American alternatives. While DeepSeek has released new models since, and the shock factor has worn off, China's tech giants like Alibaba and startups such as Moonshot AI and Zhipu have also released very capable models. Still, Hassabis said that while China could play catch up, the country's companies are yet to prove their ability to create AI breakthroughs. CEO of DeepMind Demis Hassabis listens during a debate at an AI summit at Imperial College London, in central London on July 9, 2025. Ludovic Marin | Afp | Getty Images "The question is, can they innovate something new beyond the frontier? So I think they've shown they can catch up ... and be very close to the frontier ... But can they actually innovate something new, like a new transformer ... that gets beyond the frontier? I don't think that's been shown yet," Hassabis said.The transformer was a scientific breakthrough made by Google researchers in 2017 that underpins the large language models that have been developed by AI labs in recent years, including those powering products like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. Other top technology figures have also given credit to China's progress. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said last year that the U.S. is "not far ahead" in the AI race."China is well ahead of us on energy. We are way ahead on chips. They're right there on infrastructure. They're right there on AI models," Huang said. China chip challenges China's technology firms face a number of challenges, with access to critical technology among the biggest. There is a U.S. export ban in force on leading-edge semiconductors from Nvidia that are required to train more advanced AI models.The White House has indicated that it would approve sales of Nvidia's H200 chip to China, a more advanced semiconductor than the country recently had access to. However, it is not Nvidia's top-of-the-range product.Homegrown chip firms like Huawei have looked to fill the gap, but their performance still lags behind Nvidia's offering.Some analysts have suggested that over the longer term, the lack of access to Nvidia chips in China could mean the gap between U.S. and Chinese AI models widens."I do suspect, though that we will start seeing a divergence as that superior U.S. AI infrastructure starts iterating those models and starts making those models more capable over time in years to come," Richard Clode, portfolio manager at Janus Henderson, told CNBC's "The China Connection" last week. "So I would expect from here we're probably at peak relative Chinese AI capability versus the U.S." watch nowVIDEO10:1510:15We are at the peak of relative Chinese AI capability vs U.S.: Portfolio managerThe China Connection Even Chinese companies have acknowledged their difficulties.Lin Junyang, technical lead of Alibaba's Qwen team, said during an AI conference in Beijing last week, that there was a less than 20% chance that a Chinese firm would surpass U.S. tech giants in the next three-to-five years when it comes to AI, the South China Morning Post reported. Lin reportedly said that U.S. computing infrastructure is "one to two orders of magnitude larger" than China's.Hassabis however, puts the lack of frontier breakthroughs down to "mentality" rather than tech restrictions. 'Modern day Bell Labs' The DeepMind CEO compared the company to a "modern day Bell Labs" which encourages "exploratory innovation" rather than just "scaling out what's known today. Bell Labs, founded in the early 1900s, was responsible for a number of Nobel Prize-winning discoveries. "And of course, that's already very difficult, because you need world-class engineering already to be able to do that. And China definitely has that," Hassabis said. "The scientific innovation part that's a lot harder," Hassabis added. "To invent something is about 100 times harder than it is to copy it. ... That's the next frontier really, and I haven't seen evidence of that yet, but it's very difficult." Hassabis is considered to be one of the leading figures in the world of AI. DeepMind, the company he founded more than 10 years ago, which was acquired by Google in 2014, has been a key driving force behind Alphabet-owned Google's recent success with its AI products, including Gemini. In November, Google introduced Gemini 3, its latest model, which has been well-received by users and the market as the tech giant looked to allay fears it was falling behind rivals like OpenAI.

Equinor, the Norwegian company developing the project, said it "will now focus on safely restarting construction activities." View More

The Marmac 306, a cable laying barge, in the New York Harbor in New York, US, on Thursday, July 17, 2025. The crew of an American-flagged barge will lay cable to connect the Empire Wind farm to New York City's grid a milestone for an embattled sector. Bryan Derballa | Bloomberg | Getty Images Empire Wind will resume construction off the coast of New York, after a federal judge on Thursday temporarily lifted the Trump administration's suspension of the project. The preliminary injunction issued by Judge Carl J. Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is the latest setback for President Donald Trump's efforts to stop offshore wind projects. Equinor, the Norwegian company developing Empire Wind, said it "will now focus on safely restarting construction activities that were halted during the suspension period.""In addition, the project will continue to engage with the U.S. government to ensure the safe, secure and responsible execution of its operations," Equinor said in a statement Thursday. The Department of Interior halted five wind projects off the East Coast, including Empire Wind, on Dec. 22 claiming national security concerns. Equinor in its lawsuit called the suspension "the latest unlawful action" by the Trump administration to stop the development of offshore wind.Empire Wind is expected to generate electricity for more than 500,000 homes by 2027, according to Equinor. It will provide power to New York City through a substation in Brooklyn. The other projects targeted by Trump are Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts, Revolution Wind off Rhode Island, and Sunrise Wind off Long Island and New England. A federal judge on Monday allowed Revolution Wind to resume construction. A hearing on the suspension of Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind is scheduled for Friday at 11 a.m. ET at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Norfolk. Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, owned by Dominion Energy, is the largest project of its kind in the U.S.

Q3 Results Today Live Updates: Several companies, including Jio Financial Services, HDFC Life Insurance, 360 ONE WAM, LT Technology Services, Angel One and Emmvee Photovoltaic Power, are set to announce their FY26 Q3 earnings on January 15, 2026. View More

Financial Services Secretary M Nagaraju said over 530 million Jan Dhan accounts have been opened, with women holding a majority. India now accounts for about half of global real-time payments. View More

Speaking at the global inclusive finance summit, V. Anantha Nageswaran urged banks to treat borrowers emerging from government credit support schemes as regular customers. He also asked investors in inclusive finance institutions to accept lower returns in exchange for social impact. View More

The ruling is a legal setback for the pro-fossil fuel Trump administration, which moved to block the $5 billion Revolution Wind project. View More

A turbine blade is lifted onto a rack near tower sections at the Revolution Wind project assembly site at State Pier in New London, Connecticut, US, on Friday, Oct. 24, 2025.Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images Shares of Danish renewables giant Orsted rose nearly 5% on Tuesday morning, shortly after a U.S. judge cleared the company to resume work on its nearly finished Revolution Wind project.In a statement, Orsted welcomed the ruling from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, saying the action would allow the company "to restart impacted activities immediately."The ruling is a legal setback for the pro-fossil fuel Trump administration, which moved to block the $5 billion Revolution Wind project.The White House halted five major offshore wind developments at the end of last year, including Orsted's project off the coast of Rhode Island. Officials cited national security concerns identified by the Pentagon as the reason for the suspension.Orsted filed a legal challenge to the Trump administration's decision earlier this month, saying that the lease suspension would cause "substantial harm" to the Revolution Wind project.In a hearing on Monday, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said the Court should be "very skeptical of the government's true motives" for putting a stop to the project, according to Reuters news agency."You want to stop everything in place, costing them one-and-a-half million a day, while you decide what you want to do?" Lamberth asked Justice Department attorney Peter Torstensen.A spokesperson for the U.S. Interior Department did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment. Read moreTrump halts largest offshore wind project in the U.S., Dominion stock drops nearly 4%Offshore wind has no future in the U.S. under Trump administration, Interior Secretary saysTrump administration cancels $679 million for offshore wind projects Michael Field, chief equity strategist at Morningstar, said the U.S. judge's decision was clearly welcome news for the likes of Orsted and Danish wind turbine maker Vestas but warned of further industry uncertainty."It's certainly a win for these companies anyway — and they have had such a hard time over the last year or so that they could definitely use that," Field told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Tuesday."But … whether Trump will find a way around this or find some other way to maybe go at these companies is the question. So, I wouldn't be completely celebrating as of yet," he added.Revolution Wind is a 50/50 joint venture between Orsted and Global Infrastructure Partners' Skyborn Renewables. In a filing last year, Orsted and Skyborn Renewables said they had already spent approximately $5 billion on the project.Shares of Orsted traded 4.5% higher at around 10 a.m. London time (5 a.m. ET). Vestas, meanwhile, was last seen up around 1.6%. Shares of Norway's Equinor, whose Empire Wind 1 project was also impacted, were last seen 2.7% higher. U.S.-listed Dominion Energy, the developer of the halted Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, the largest of its kind in America, was flat in pre-market trade.

UNDER EMBARGO TILL 6.AM on TuesdayIt has a presence in all the windy States in India, along with 40 MWs of capacity in Sri Lanka View More

The 2026 tax season opens on Jan. 26. To prepare, you should access your IRS online account, which could save time later, experts say. View More

D3sign | Moment | Getty Images With the start of tax season officially about two weeks away, the IRS has advice about how to get ready — including details about a free tool that could make filing easier this year. The 2026 tax season opens on Jan. 26, which is the first day the agency will accept and process individual tax returns for 2025, the IRS announced last week. The deadline to file federal returns and pay taxes due is April 15 for most taxpayers. To prepare, "one of the most important steps" is accessing your IRS online account, where you can make payments and see key tax information, the agency said in a news release. Read more CNBC personal finance coverageWhat the investigation of Fed chair Powell may mean for your moneyWhat Trump's 1-year, 10% credit card interest rate cap means for your moneyThis is one of the 'most important steps' before tax season opens, IRS saysHow tax-efficient investing could boost your portfolio returns in 2026 and beyondFor 2026, these new 401(k) details 'matter more than ever,' advisor saysWe're in a 'hiring recession,' economist says — how job seekers can stand outWar, booze and mopeds: Travel insurance coverage gaps that may surprise youFirst 2026 Social Security payments bring a bigger check in JanuaryConsumer outlook improves despite job worries, New York Fed survey findsIRS will start accepting tax returns Jan. 26 for the 2026 tax seasonWhere Trump's $2,000 tariff dividend checks stand nowAfter a record-breaking holiday shopping season comes a wave of returningWhat Medicaid changes in Trump's 'big beautiful bill' mean for family caregiversOlder workers could use 401(k) money to buy annuities, under bipartisan billCNBC's Financial Advisor 100: Best financial advisors, top firms ranked The reminder comes as the IRS faces tax changes enacted via President Donald Trump's "big beautiful bill" after staffing cuts from Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and other reductions. These cuts didn't significantly impact the 2025 filing season because many critical IRS roles were exempt through May 15, 2025, and June 30, 2025, according to a September report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, an independent federal agency.However, the workforce reductions — amounting to 17% to 19% of "key IRS functions" for the filing season — could impact processing and customer service in 2026, according to the report. "The Internal Revenue Service is ready to help taxpayers meet their tax filing and payment obligations during the 2026 filing season," IRS CEO Frank Bisignano said in a news release last week."IRS information systems have been updated to incorporate the new tax laws and are ready to efficiently and effectively process taxpayer returns during the filing season," he said.The IRS expects roughly 164 million individual income tax returns in 2026, with most taxpayers filing electronically. How to access your IRS online account Your IRS online account has several features that could save time during the 2026 tax season, experts say. The portal includes prior tax records, your refund status, balance due for each year, IRS notices, audit status updates, and certain information returns that employers and financial companies report to the agency, such as Forms W-2, 1095-A for marketplace health insurance and 1099-NEC for contract work. You can also make payments, set up payment plans, approve account authorizations and more.Opening your IRS online account for the first time can be "relatively cumbersome" because you need an ID.me account, which is a third-party identity verification company, Tom O'Saben, director of tax content and government relations at the National Association of Tax Professionals, told reporters on a call this week.ID.me requires a photo of a government-issued ID and a selfie or a live call with an ID.me video chat agent. "But once that thing is set up, it's done," said O'Saben, who is also an enrolled agent, which is a tax license to practice before the IRS. "You have a little bit of pain for long-term gain." watch nowVIDEO5:0205:02Building a tax efficient portfolioPower Lunch

GE Vernova T&D India and Cummins India faced heavy losses, dropping up to 6.5% after reports of India lifting restrictions on Chinese companies bidding for government contracts worth $700–750 billion. The BSE Capital Goods index also fell by 2.4%. View More

BHEL shares slid 15% after reports flagged possible Chinese competition in power equipment. Analysts say policy risks are overstated, with execution, margins and a ?2.2 trillion order book in focus. View More