Every few months, an AI lab in China that most people in the U.S. have never heard of releases an AI model that upends conventional wisdom about the cost of training and running cutting-edge AI. In January,

The open-source M1 boasts a record-breaking context window and lean training budget, promising enterprise-grade reasoning without hyperscaler resources — and reshaping the AI playing field.

The Shanghai-based firm said its open-source M1 model is more efficient in tasks including maths and coding than the popular DeepSeek-R1.