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Oct. 4, 2025, 6:00 AM EDTBy Jared PerloEarly last week in the Chinese tech hub of Hangzhou, a slick, larger-than-life video screen beamed out four words that would drive tech giant Alibaba’s stock to historic levels and signal a shift in China’s approach to artificial intelligence: “Roadmap to Artificial Superintelligence.”During his 23-minute keynote address at the flagship Alibaba Cloud conference, Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu charted out a future featuring artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial superintelligence (ASI). These terms point to a theorized era in which AI becomes roughly as smart as humans (AGI) and then much, much smarter (ASI).While these terms have been tossed around Silicon Valley for years, Wu’s presentation was notable: Alibaba is now the first established Chinese tech giant to explicitly invoke AGI and ASI.“Achieving AGI — an intelligent system with general human-level cognition — now appears inevitable. Yet AGI is not the end of AI’s development, but its beginning,” Wu said. “It will march toward ASI — intelligence beyond the human, capable of self-iteration and continuous evolution.”“ASI will drive exponential technological leaps, carrying us into an unprecedented age of intelligence,” Wu said, highlighting ASI’s ability to help cure diseases, discover cleaner sources of energy and even unlock interstellar travel.The U.S. and China are the world’s leading AI powers, each with immense computing capabilities and top-tier researchers developing cutting-edge systems. Yet observers have framed the countries as having different approaches to AI, with perceptions that China focuses more on real-world AI applications.For example, commentators recently argued that Beijing is currently “winning the race for AI robots” against the U.S., as China is home to much of the world’s most advanced robotics supply chains and a growing network of robotics, or embodied AI, labs.“There’s been some commentary in Western media recently about how the U.S. is missing the point by pushing for AGI, while China is focusing solely on applications,” said Helen Toner, interim executive director of Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. “This is wrong.”“Some Chinese researchers and some parts of the Chinese government have been interested in AGI and superintelligence for a long time,” Toner said, though she noted this view was primarily held by smaller startups like DeepSeek.China’s push for global AI dominance04:44Afra Wang, a researcher focusing on China’s tech scene, said Alibaba’s invocation of AGI and ASI was remarkable.“This ASI narrative is definitely something new, especially among the biggest tech companies in China,” she told NBC News.Alibaba’s “roadmap to artificial superintelligence” seems to scramble mainstream perceptions. Any number of California techno-optimists, like Anthropic’s Dario Amodei or xAI’s Elon Musk, might have delivered Wu’s speech, selling a technology-enabled utopia while largely sidestepping darker questions about how humanity would co-exist with or survive an era of digital superintelligence.The concept of superintelligence has long been on the minds of — if not explicitly guiding — prominent American AI companies. For example, OpenAI released an article focused on the safe development of superintelligent AI models in May 2023. “Now is a good time to start thinking about the governance of superintelligence — future AI systems dramatically more capable than even AGI,” the statement said.The possibility of superintelligence is now even being acknowledged in Congress. On Monday, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Ill., announced a draft bill that would, among other actions, “assist Congress in determining the potential for controlled AI systems to reach artificial superintelligence.”To some, ASI might seem like an outlandish concept when today’s AI systems fail to understand basic tennis rules, hallucinate or fabricate basic information, or do not seem to actually comprehend how the external world functions.At the same time, AI systems continue to approach and sometimes surpass human capabilities in many domains, from driving cars safely to winning international coding competitions, leaving many experts to say it’s a matter of when, not if, humans develop digital superintelligence.As the idea of superintelligence gradually enters mainstream debates, many American politicians have announced that the U.S. is in an AI race with China. The White House’s current AI manifesto is titled “Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan,” while Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, proclaimed that “as a matter of economic security, as a matter of national security, America has to beat China in the AI race.”Yet charges of an AI race are muddied by a lack of an agreed end goal and swirling definitions of AGI. At worst, experts think an unfettered race toward AGI or ASI could lead to widespread catastrophe or even the end of humanity.But there’s also plenty of skepticism around talk of AGI and ASI and whether it’s primarily for marketing purposes.Alibaba is one of China’s largest tech companies, known for providing powerful, free AI models — also called open-source models — for download. Alibaba’s Qwen model series, a competitor to models like OpenAI’s GPT-5 or Anthropic’s Claude, is the most popular open-source AI system in the world.OpenAI launches Sora 2 wth AI social media app05:48Wu announced a new series of Qwen models in his speech last week, including a model that combines text, images, video and audio capabilities.Many observers point out that narratives about a U.S.-China AI race and a resulting sprint to build AI infrastructure serve AI investors by propping up company valuations and increasing their soft power. Alibaba’s stock has soared since Wu’s speech last week, part of a larger $250 billion comeback this year that has made it China’s hottest AI company.To unlock a powerful, superintelligent future, Wu predicted that large AI models will replace existing operating systems as the link between users, software and computational power. This future network of large AI models will run on cloud computing networks like Alibaba Cloud, he said.Irene Zhang, a researcher on China’s AI ecosystem and an editor of ChinaTalk, noted the business undertones of Wu’s announcement.“This is a vision of AGI and ASI that’s directly based on Alibaba’s business model,” she said.“Alibaba Cloud dominates China’s cloud computing market, and its global market share is now bigger than Oracle’s,” she said. “Alibaba’s commercial strategy and its publicly stated views on ASI/AGI are symbiotic.”Matt Sheehan, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, agreed.“ASI is the ultimate frontier, as far as the discourse goes on AI,” Sheehan said. “It’s notable that Alibaba set this grandiose goal, but in reality, they’re selling cloud services.”Jared PerloJared Perlo is a writer and reporter at NBC News covering AI. He is currently supported by the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism.

- Latest News - October 5, 2025

Alibaba announced a new initiative aiming to reach AI superintelligence, heating up an arms race with American AI companies.

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Oct. 5, 2025, 5:30 AM EDTBy Alexander SmithLONDON — Despite being headlined by a genuine star and staged at one of London’s premier theaters, a play about the foundation of a sprawling and troubled public service seemed unlikely to provoke night after night of standing ovations.But that’s what happened with “Nye,” an unlikely hit about the creator, and origin story, of Britain’s taxpayer-funded National Health Service.The play, written by Tim Price and directed by Rufus Norris, came at an inflection point for the NHS, as it’s known. Almost 80 years after it was founded, the medical service once touted as the envy of the world is “broken” and suffering the “biggest crisis in its history,” the government says. The crisis at this national bedrock is part of a bigger malaise at the heart of British culture: rising prices, stagnant wages and crumbling public services. “I’m terrified, not just for the NHS, but for the whole of our society,” Michael Sheen, who starred as Aneurin “Nye” Bevan, the founder of the NHS, told NBC News in an interview. “Once it’s torn down, then I guess people will think about what they’ve lost.”Michael Sheen performing in “Nye” at London’s National Theatre. Johan Persson / National TheatreSheen, 56, better known to international audiences as Tony Blair in “The Queen,” David Frost in “Frost/Nixon” and the angel Aziraphale in the Amazon Prime series “Good Omens,” has spent much of the last two years honing his portrayal of Bevan, the socialist politician who dragged himself out of Wales’ coal mines to will the NHS into existence.Though second nature to Brits, the ideal of the NHS is unfamiliar to many Americans: British people have universally free health care at the point of access — from ambulances attending car accidents to insulin for diabetes to cancer care to childbirth. Though some people do have private insurance, the idea of having to choose between illness and financial ruin is shocking in the U.K.Now the Labour Party, which created the then-radical NHS in 1948, is battling its own economic constraints and record-setting unpopularity. It has a colossal task if it is to fix the crumbling hospitals replete with overworked doctors and bed-lined corridors. Prime Minister Keir Starmer must turn around a behemoth whose budget of 200 billion English pounds ($269 billion) represents some 40% of all government spending, and whose 1.4 million employees are the world’s seventh-largest workforce. In the United States, only the Department of Defense, Walmart and Amazon outnumber it.An ambulance outside St Thomas’ Hospital in London in 2023.Belinda Jiao file / Getty ImagesThrough all this, the core NHS ideal endures. Everyone in the U.K. has a story of a relative, or themselves, receiving the type of world-class care that puts a terrifying financial strain on millions of Americans. (In the past six years, this reporter’s mother has had a single mastectomy and reconstruction, as well as three titanium plates in a shattered ankle, without having to pay a pound for the care.)But just as common are the tales of maddening, hourslong waits in overstretched emergency rooms, or weeklong delays just to see a community general practitioner. Many critics blame the sprawling crisis on years of underfunding by the now-ousted Conservative government of 2010-2024, whose response to the 2008 financial crisis was to make drastic cuts to public services.It’s perhaps unsurprising that a largely liberal London-theatergoing audience responded with applause and tears at the hagiography of Bevan at the National Theater. Though relatively unknown in wider society, admirers see Bevan as a founding father of modern Britain; his ideal of the NHS today is not just popular, it defines the country itself.“It’s far from perfect,” said Alison Ferris, 40, a nurse at a hospital in Canterbury, in southeast England. “But I do the best that I can for anyone that comes in front of me. I treat every patient like I would treat my loved ones.”Though the concept remains revered, public satisfaction in the NHS in practice cratered to 52% in 2023 from a high of 70% in 2010, according to the King’s Fund, a top think tank tracking British health care.Nye Bevan, Britain’s Minister of Health who is credited with spearheading the creation of the National Health Service, meets a patient in 1948. Edward G. Malindine / Getty Images“We have to fight for the NHS, the same as the NHS was fought for when it was created,” said Ferris’ mother, Caroline Heggie, 70, a hospital union representative, who like her daughter had come to see the last night of “Nye” at the National Theater last month. “We can’t go the way of privatization, we can’t go the way of America. That’s what we’re up against.”Like Bevan, Sheen is a Welsh firebrand unafraid to wear his leftist politics. But he also lived for 14 years in Los Angeles, so knows too well what life is like without socialized health care.“The idea of this health care system that we have here, just seemed so alien to them over there,” Sheen, who now lives back in his Welsh hometown of Port Talbot, says of his former American hosts. He says that “seeing people go into hospitals with serious injuries or illnesses, and being asked to produce their check book before they can be treated” would shock most Britons.The crisis at the NHS coincides with an uptick in hostility toward immigrants — even though they are often people’s doctors, nurses and hospital cleaners. Almost 20% of NHS staff have a non-British nationality, with Indians, Filipinos, Nigerians, Irish and Poles making up most of their number. Nigel Farage, the leader of the hard-right Reform U.K. party and an ally and friend of President Donald Trump, is leading some polls to become Britain’s next prime minister. He has become the first prospective leader to question the funding model of using taxes to fund the NHS — historically taboo.‘Britain stands at a fork in the road’: Starmer warns against rise of far-right populism01:40“It doesn’t work — it’s not working,” Farage told NBC News’ British partner Sky News in May. “We’re getting worse bang for the buck than any other country, particularly out of those European neighbours.”Opposing Farage’s proposal, however, leaves open the specter of privatization, which many say has been creeping up even before the Health and Social Care Act 2012 opened up the NHS to bids from private contractors.Farage isn’t the only person dissatisfied. Indeed, the NHS has slipped from being a world-leader on many metrics.“Corridor care” is now a year-round crisis, and the number of people waiting 12 hours or more to be admitted into an emergency room rose from 47 in summer 2015 to 74,150 this summer. Targets have lagged for years in everything from ambulance attendance times to cancer diagnoses. Meanwhile, a 7 million-strong waiting list means many people feel abandoned for months, in pain, before getting hip or knee replacement and other types of surgery.There is ample evidence to suggest that economic austerity policies imposed during 14 years of Conservative Party rule are at least partly to blame, according to Max Warner, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a London research group.“It is true that a lot of NHS performance measures over the 2010s were broadly getting worse having started off relatively well,” he said. “Although it’s worth saying that productivity did grow, so it’s a nuanced picture and causality is difficult.”The Conservatives argued that they kept NHS spending up, protecting it from the brutal cuts that crushed almost every other government department at the time. But this 2% yearly growth still fell well short of the 3.8% yearly average since the 1980s, and according to critics was insufficient to cope with an aging population and the rising prices of cutting-edge drugs.Far from the envy of the world, Britain has been scrimping by spending 37 billion pounds ($53 billion) on the health services each year, well below Germany, France and Australia, a landmark review found last year.The current Labour government has outlined plans to raise spending to around 3% — an improvement but still short of what many advocates had hoped. At his annual Labour Party conference this week, Starmer announced that a digital overhaul named NHS Online would launch in 2027, describing it as “a new chapter in the story of our NHS.”Ultimately, whatever the model, cash is key, according to Roy Lilley, who ran an NHS hospital in the 1990s as chairman of Homewood NHS Trust in Surrey, west of London.Michael Sheen, center, performing in “Nye” at London’s National Theatre. Johan Persson / National Theatre“It doesn’t matter how you pay for your health care,” said Lilley, today a consultant whose newsletter hits 300,000 inboxes. “Whether you take it out of your pocket marked ‘insurance,’ or you take it out of your pocket marked ‘taxes,’ it’s still your trousers.” He remains optimistic, however, pointing to some waiting metrics improving and a general recovery from the hammerblow of the pandemic, which drained resources and mentally scarred doctors.Still, Sheen — never shy to mix acting with activism — believes it’s no coincidence that the NHS is in crisis just when its origin story begins to vanish from living memory.“The crisis that we seem to be experiencing makes it all the more important to go back to the beginning and to look at what was behind the founding of the NHS, and what the principles were,” he said. “It becomes incredibly important to tell the story of it and to remind people of what it was actually like, so that we don’t forget.”Alexander SmithAlexander Smith is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital based in London.

- Latest News - October 5, 2025

“Nye,” an unlikely hit about the creator, and origin story, of Britain’s taxpayer-funded National Health Service, came at an inflection point for the NHS.

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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 5, 2025, 5:00 AM EDTBy Andrew GreifA month into the NFL season, one team — Team A, let’s call it — has yet to gain more yards than any of its opponents. Team A’s passing offense is ghastly. Last week, its rarely thrown-to star receiver posted a cryptic message on Twitter after the team failed to complete a single pass after halftime. Another MVP-level offensive weapon isn’t producing as expected, either. And statistically speaking, its defense ranks around average.Those might sound like the hallmarks of a team going nowhere. But Team A isn’t the 0-4 Jets, Titans or Saints, or the stunningly 1-3 Ravens, either. It’s the Philadelphia Eagles, who have followed a Super Bowl title last season with a 4-0 start to the new season. They join Buffalo as the lone undefeated teams remaining entering Week 5. These are the same Eagles who have won 20 of their last 21 games and whose 12-game home winning streak is the second-longest in franchise history, since nearly World War II. By record, the Eagles are unblemished. Yet that doesn’t mean it has come without drama.Much of it has been sparked by whether they have a dynamic enough offense to repeat as champions. When quarterback Jalen Hurts went 0-for-8 after halftime last week against previously unbeaten Tampa Bay, star receiver A.J. Brown posted on X a Scripture passage: “If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.”Did Brown intimate he wanted to be on his way out of town, after averaging just 3.5 catches per game? Nick Sirianni, the team’s head coach, said he didn’t doubt Brown’s willingness to be an Eagle and be a “good teammate.” “He wants to contribute into these wins, and he’s had a couple games where he hasn’t been able to, for different reasons of why we haven’t in these games,” Sirianni said.Brown later deleted the post and said it was not directly at anyone specific.“We have a lot of talent on offense and, to be honest, defense and special teams, have been low-key carrying us,” Brown said Wednesday, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.“We need to clean up what we need to clean up and get on the same page and play to the ability that we say we can, and be who we are called to be. It’s a standard that we preach. So it’s easy to have that frustration. I think it’s fair to have that frustration. But I just can’t let that boil over.”Yet the fact remains that no offense has gained fewer first downs via passes than the Eagles, who have also completed the league’s third-fewest passes. They are averaging 6.0 yards per pass attempt, which is nearly two yards behind last season’s average. A passing game that brought back most of the players who helped produce 12 explosive plays of 40-plus yards last season, tied for second-most, has generated just one in four games. The offense is run by a first-year coordinator, after his predecessor, Kellen Moore, parlayed last season’s Super Bowl run into a head-coaching job in New Orleans. But Brown’s post also rekindled speculation about the strength of the working relationship between Brown and quarterback Jalen Hurts — a topic of debate for two years in Philadelphia.“It’s good,” Hurts told reporters this week.“I’m not gonna analyze or speculate” about Brown’s post,” Hurts said. “He’s always willing to contribute, and that remains.”The kinks in the passing offense wouldn’t be as worrisome if the Eagles’ vaunted running game wasn’t also enduring its own. The combination has led to Jekyll-and-Hyde performances where the offense has sometimes looked explosive, and sometimes produced kaput.“We got to be more consistent,” Sirianni said this week.While turning the “Tush Push” quarterback sneak into a nearly unstoppable (and nearly banned) weapon in short-yardage situations, and blocking for running back Saquon Barkley as he became only the ninth 2,000-yard rusher in NFL history last season, the Eagles’ offensive line earned a reputation as the NFL’s very best. This season, however, three players are coming off either offseason surgery or playing through injury, while a fourth is in his first season as starter.Last season, that line created so much room for Barkley to run that he gained an average of 3.8 yards before being hit, the highest of any running back, according to Pro Football Reference. This season, that average has dropped to 1.7 yards before contact, and Barkley has had defenders in his face much quicker. Through four games, Barkley has gained half as many yards per carry than at the same point last season. And Barkley, last season’s offensive player of the year, has yet to gain more than 100 yards from scrimmage in a single game. “When the running game is going bad, I’ve got to own it,” Barkley said after last week’s win in Tampa. “The beauty of it is we’re not running the ball too great and we’re 4-0.”What else we’re watching for in Week 5:Minnesota (2-2) vs. Cleveland (1-3): The league’s third international game this season, in London, is the backdrop for Browns quarterback Dillon Gabriel’s first career start after replacing Joe Flacco. The last Browns quarterback to win in his first start was Eric Zeier in 1995.Denver (2-2) at Philadelphia (4-0): The Broncos have lost five consecutive road games dating to last season but lead the league with 15 sacks. Las Vegas (1-3) at Indianapolis (3-1): The Colts could become the first team since 1945 to go three consecutive home games without a punt. The Raiders, meanwhile, have lost seven straight games against winning teams.Houston (1-3) at Baltimore (1-3): Division winners from last season who harbored similar playoff aspirations this year find themselves in a world of trouble. The Texans are coming off only their third shutout in franchise history. Baltimore’s Derrick Henry is one rushing touchdown from tying Walter Payton (110) for the fifth-most in NFL history.Giants (1-3) at New Orleans (0-4): After a win in his first career start, Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart will try to end his team’s seven-game losing streak on the road. His Saints counterpart, Spencer Rattler, is 0-10 for his career.Dallas (1-2-1) at Jets (0-4): The good: The Cowboys lead the NFL with 404.3 yards per game. The bad: Their defense has allowed even more, ranking dead last. The Jets have yet to force a turnover — the only team yet to do so.Miami (1-3) at Carolina (1-3): The Panthers recommitted to Bryce Young as the starter. All three of their losses have been on the road. Miami is 21-8 against teams with losing records under coach Mike McDaniel.Tampa Bay (3-1) at Seattle (3-1): Can Seattle end its struggles at home? Since 2022, the Buccaneers have lost six straight games when playing without receiver Mike Evans, who will miss this game with a hamstring injury.Tennessee (0-4) at Arizona (2-2): The Titans are trying to avoid their first 0-5 start since 2009, while the Cardinals have lost two straight.Washington (2-2) at Chargers (3-1): Chargers running back Omarion Hampton leads all rookies with 380 yards from scrimmage this season; that includes 110 through the air. The Commanders are 0-2 on the road.Detroit (3-1) at Cincinnati (2-2): While obvious the Bengals would struggle without quarterback Joe Burrow, they’ve also become the first team since the 2009 Raiders to fail to gain more than 200 yards in three of their first four games.New England (2-2) at Buffalo (4-0): Josh Allen has 34 touchdowns and two turnovers in his last 13 games. If the Bills win, they’ll be 5-0 for the first time since 1991. Kansas City (2-2) at Jacksonville (3-1) on Monday: Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes threw for more touchdowns (four) last week than he had in his first three games combined. The Jaguars have forced a league-best 13 turnovers.Andrew GreifAndrew Greif is a sports reporter for NBC News Digital. 

- Latest News - October 5, 2025

A month into the NFL season, one team — Team A, let’s call it — has yet to gain more yards than any of its opponents.

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Oct. 5, 2025, 5:01 AM EDTBy Freddie ClaytonPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Israel and Hamas are on the brink of a hostage deal as President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and his Middle East envoy both traveled to the region for talks, raising hopes Sunday that the war in Gaza was on the verge of ending.Progress toward a ceasefire came after Hamas responded positively to Trump’s 20-point plan unveiled last week, pending conditions. Israeli attacks continued into Sunday, Gaza’s Civil Defense Spokesman Mahmoud Basal told NBC News, despite Trump’s calls to end the strikes. Of the 48 hostages remaining in Gaza, Israel believes 20 are still alive. Under the plan proposed by Trump, Hamas would have three days to release them.Trump has given the militant group until 6 p.m. E.T. Sunday to accept, and warned Hamas to move quickly, “or else all bets will be off.””When Hamas confirms, the Ceasefire will be IMMEDIATELY effective,” he said on Truth Social.

- Latest News - October 5, 2025

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Israel and Hamas are on the brink of a hostage deal as President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and his Middle East envoy both traveled to the.

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