Welcome to The AI Loop #14. We just wrapped Consensus Hong Kong and we're heading to ETHDenver with a packed schedule. This next week includes panels, hackathons, and a lot of building. Meanwhile, the AI world keeps pushing forward with breakthroughs in robotics, chips, and healthcare. Let's get into it.

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Perle Labs Update

Consensus Hong Kong ✓ — ETHDenver, Here We Come (right after a little pit stop in New York for Valentine's Day with Colombia University's Artifical Intelligence Club!)

We're fresh off an incredible week at Consensus Hong Kong, and now we're gearing up for ETHDenver.

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The Perle Labs team will be everywhere:

• MultiChain Day by Wrapped Events: Arthur will be on a panel covering all things AI infra, computer and coordination.
• RoboCon by PrismaX: Ahmed will be on a panel covering robotics x AI x Web3 and what it takes to coordinate physical AI systems in the real world. Wed, Feb 18, 1:00–5:30PM
• Proof of AI: Builder and Influencer Night: Hosted by PayPal Ventures and KiteAI. We'll be on another panel alongside top AI founders, VCs, and ecosystem teams. Wed, Feb 18, 7:00–11:00PM
• Open AGI Summit by Sentient: Ahmed will be speaking on the future of decentralized AI infrastructure. Don't miss this one! Thur, Feb 19, 2:00–8:00PM

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ETHDenver week is about to be nonstop. If you're in Denver, come say hi. See you in the mountains! ⛰️

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New York! We're Running It Back

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We're also co-organizing a Valentine's Day Hackathon alongside Anthropic, ElevenLabs, Lovable, and more — in partnership with Columbia CBS AI Club. Expect a full day of building, shipping, and meeting some of the best people in the AI ecosystem.

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Top AI Stories

Alibaba's RynnBrain Smashes 16 Robotics Records, Tops Google and NVIDIA

Alibaba has entered the "physical AI" race with RynnBrain, a new model designed to power robots in the real world. The system helps machines understand space, objects, and motion — enabling robots to recall where objects appeared earlier and predict how they'll move next.

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RynnBrain set new records across 16 open-source embodied AI benchmarks, surpassing Google's Gemini Robotics ER 1.5 and NVIDIA's Cosmos Reason 2. Despite being a 30-billion-parameter model, it activates only 3 billion during inference, allowing for smoother motion and faster decision-making. Alibaba also released seven fully open-source models to lower research barriers for robotics developers.

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Source: Interesting Engineering

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ByteDance Developing AI Chip, In Manufacturing Talks With Samsung

ByteDance is developing an in-house AI chip codenamed SeedChip and is in talks with Samsung to manufacture it. The TikTok parent aims to receive sample chips by end of March and plans to produce at least 100,000 units this year, potentially ramping to 350,000.

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The move comes as U.S. export controls add urgency for Chinese tech companies to develop their own AI chips. ByteDance plans to spend over 160 billion yuan ($22 billion) on AI-related procurement this year, with more than half going to Nvidia chips and in-house chip development. Rivals Alibaba and Baidu are already ahead. Alibaba recently unveiled its Zhenwu chip, and Baidu plans to list its chip unit Kunlunxin soon.

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Source: Reuters

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Stanford's Octopi Microscope Speeds Up Malaria Diagnosis With AI

Stanford engineers have developed Octopi, a battery/solar-powered autonomous microscope with integrated AI that automatically diagnoses malaria in blood smears, a process that previously took 30 minutes per sample by hand. Octopi can scan 1 million blood cells per minute with near-100% specificity.

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At $1,000 per unit versus $100,000+ for current robotic microscopes, Octopi is designed for remote, off-grid regions where malaria thrives. The open software architecture allows users worldwide to train it for other diseases. The team has already reconfigured it for sickle cell anemia and tuberculosis. "We want to create an app store for the world's most deadly diseases," said inventor Manu Prakash.

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Source: Stanford News

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Stay in the Loop

That's a wrap on Edition #14. We're heading into a huge week of events; if you're at ETHDenver or in New York, come find us!

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Join the Perle Labs community on X, Discord, and Telegram to stay connected and catch the next drop of insights from across the ecosystem.