The Number
- DeepSeek lists deepseek-v4-pro at $0.66/M input (cache miss, off-peak) and $1.98/M output, per DeepSeek's pricing docs as of 2026-10-08.
- Qwen3-max runs 2.5元/M input for the first 32K tokens, Alibaba's cheapest Max tier, per DashScope pricing as of 2026-10-08.
- GLM-5.2 lists at $0.03/M prompt on OpenRouter, matching qwen3.7-flash at the bottom of the China-lab price stack, on OpenRouter as of 2026-10-08.
Top of the Fold
- Manus parent Butterfly Effect closes a $500M round led by 博裕 and IDG with Tencent and Sequoia China following, the largest single raise for a China Agent startup, per 智东西.
- Moonshot marks Kimi K3 as formally released at the top of its pricing docs, moving the flagship past the K2 line with per-TTL cache tiers, per Moonshot's platform docs.
- DeepSeek retires the standalone v4-flash variants and routes legacy names to DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash at the Flash price, folding its cheap tier into one model, per DeepSeek's pricing docs.
Untranslated
- Manus is reopening its Beijing office and hiring hard against domestic Agent rivals after years away, a reversal that lands alongside the new raise, per 量子位.
- StepFun sets a Oct 13 launch for STEPX Neo, pitched as a model-native agent phone, per 量子位.
- Tencent's WorkBuddy adds a standalone file browser so users right-click local Word, Excel and PPT files into the agent without uploading, per 智东西.
- Otherwise quiet across the Chinese community overnight; model-repo and arXiv feeds failed to fetch and are not stamped in-window.
The Backstory
- 虎嗅 revisits its first under-30 AI list a year on, noting 松延动力 founder 姜哲源, a 1998-born Tsinghua PhD dropout, pushing humanoid robots into commercial deployment, per 虎嗅.
The Kicker
- A Vidu Q4 preview let one 量子位 writer spin up a parody "evil grandma GTA 6" clip for 5元, per 量子位.
