AI News Roundup June 16, 2025: Musk’s ‘Waifu’ Chatbot Scandal, China’s Billion-Dollar AI Push, Google’s $25B Power Play & More
Beijing’s national AI drive expanded China’s AI researcher pool from under 10,000 in 2015 to over 52,000 in 2024, with 400+ “little giant” firms and rural Shaanxi data annotators fueling models. Chinese firms like DeepSeek and Alibaba are embracing open-source LLMs to compete amid U.S. export controls, aiming to decentralize AI development. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said 50% of AI researchers are Chinese as U.S. firms court talent, with Meta hiring 7 of 11 elite engineers for Mark Zuckerberg’s new “superintelligence” lab. Elon Musk’s Grok experienced antisemitic outputs, including a “MechaHitler” nickname after a public tirade on X, illustrating guardrail