Two new US models use the savings tricks Chinese teams proposed first, Changan and CATL launched a project for sodium-battery swap, targeting extreme cold, and Microsoft stuffed chat, coding, and assistant into one interface; Copilot's new positioning is for work.
TMTPost tore down two freshly released US models: Anthropic's Opus 5.5 and OpenAI's GPT-6 Luna. The author found that their approach to saving compute (the machine resources needed to run AI) had long since appeared in Chinese teams' papers and announcements. Down to the numbers. Opus 5.5, at its highest setting, outputs an average of 119,000 tokens per question (the smallest unit of text a model reads and writes), of which 84,000 are the thinking process — it takes the route of thinking more on the spot to buy accuracy. GPT-6 Luna goes the other way: $0.1 per million tokens input, $0.5 output, half the price of the previous generation; cache hits (storing already-computed repeated content to fetch directly next time) cost $0.01, 90% cheaper. DeepSeek launched the same approach on August 2, with cache hits at 0.1 yuan per million tokens (the smallest unit of text a model reads and writes), also 90% cheaper. If you're a developer paying by call volume, or buying AI tools for a team, watch cache pricing over the next few months. Put system prompts and long documents — the stuff read every time — at the very front; once they hit the cache, the unit price for the same work drops by ninety percent. When picking a model, add one question: what price does the repeated part get charged at.
Per ITHome on September 25, from Changan Automobile's investor relations activity record published September 24. The company made phased progress on sodium-ion batteries, breaking through single-point technology for high-power electrodes, used to improve range under extreme temperatures. It also set up a project with CATL for sodium new battery-swap technology, the two jointly developing a new-system battery. Sodium batteries' strength is cold resistance. CATL released its sodium new battery in April 2024, rated for use from minus 40°C to plus 70°C; installed in a car with a 2.95-meter wheelbase, the hybrid version's pure-electric range is claimed to exceed 200 kilometers, and the pure-electric version over 500 kilometers. Battery swap means taking the battery off the car and swapping in another, a matter of minutes, no waiting in line at a charging pile. People who use their cars year-round below minus twenty degrees can watch the rollout timetable for such announcements. When buying a car, ask about measured low-temperature range — more useful than looking at the rated mileage. Readers driving for ride-hailing can wait for swap stations to spread before considering it; what battery swap saves is the time of charging once a day.
Microsoft released a new version of Copilot on the evening of September 25. The Information's report says this time it put chat, coding, and agents (AI that can take a few steps on its own) into the same interface, directly targeting Anthropic's spot in the enterprise market. Microsoft positions it as AI born for work, and even compared it to Office's impact on productivity back in the day. There's a backdrop to this move: in the enterprise market, Anthropic's models grabbed a lot of coding orders this year, and Microsoft needs to bundle its several capabilities into one entry point. Microsoft stock rose 3.66% that day, the brightest of the six US AI names. Readers using Copilot at work will next see the interfaces merge, with the previously separate chat, coding, and automation entries gathered in one place. When picking tools, try one standard: do the same task once in chat mode and once in assistant mode, and see which makes you redo less work. Individual users don't need to rush to switch; the enterprise version moves first.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld, 2 to 1, the Pentagon's supply chain risk designation against Anthropic on September 25. Under this designation, the US military cannot use Anthropic's Claude models, and defense contractors cannot use them on government projects either. The starting point was the $200 million contract in July 2025, and the negotiations that September about deploying Claude on military AI platforms. The Pentagon wanted all lawful uses allowed; Anthropic wanted two bottom lines: not for fully autonomous weapons, not for domestic mass surveillance. After talks broke down, Defense Secretary Hegseth accused the company of wanting veto power over US military operational decisions. A federal judge in San Francisco already ruled one of the designations unlawful last month; this time the other one was upheld. AI companies doing government and enterprise business can remember the consequence of this case: writing use restrictions into a contract may be deemed a supply chain risk. When drafting proposals for government projects, prepare the use clauses and a backup supplier together — don't let one line's model become the only option.
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