AI News, Jul 15, 2026: Apple partners with Alibaba to launch Apple Intelligence in China

Today's news highlights breakthroughs in on-device reasoning and math, alongside mounting legal scrutiny over AI training data and workplace use.

1. 01
   Thinking Machines releases massive open-source audio and video modelWIRED AI

   Thinking Machines Lab released Inkling, a 975-billion-parameter open-source model trained to understand both video and audio inputs.

   Why it matters

   Developers and researchers gain free access to a highly capable multimodal model, offering an open-source alternative to proprietary systems.
2. 02
   OpenAI's new model disproves long-standing statistics conjectureThe Decoder

   A statistics professor used OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol Pro to disprove a 30-year-old mathematical conjecture about the Benjamini-Hochberg method in just 90 minutes.

   Why it matters

   This demonstrates that advanced AI models can now solve complex, unsolved academic problems that have stumped human experts for decades.
3. 03
   OpenAI builds automated AI hacker to test its own defensesMIT Technology Review AI

   OpenAI developed GPT-Red, an AI system that uses self-play to attack other models and find security flaws, which helped secure the newly released GPT-5.6.

   Why it matters

   Automating security testing helps developers find and patch model vulnerabilities much faster than human teams can.
4. 04
   Data breach reveals AI music generator Suno scraped YouTubeTechCrunch

   A security breach at AI music startup Suno exposed source code showing the company scraped decades of audio from YouTube and other platforms to train its model.

   Why it matters

   This evidence could weaken AI companies' fair-use defense in ongoing copyright lawsuits brought by major record labels.
5. 05
   New compressed reasoning model runs directly on iPhonesThe Decoder

   PrismML compressed its 27-billion-parameter Bonsai model to under 4 gigabytes, allowing it to run on an iPhone while retaining 90 percent of its original performance.

   Why it matters

   You can now run highly capable reasoning, coding, and math models locally on your phone without needing an active internet connection.
6. 06
   Apple partners with Alibaba to launch Apple Intelligence in ChinaTechCrunch

   Apple has cleared a major regulatory hurdle in China by partnering with Alibaba to power its Apple Intelligence features using the Chinese tech giant's Qwen AI model.

   Why it matters

   iPhone users in China will gain access to Apple's AI features powered by local models, resolving a major regulatory hurdle for the company.
7. 07
   Meta employees sue over AI-driven layoff selectionThe Decoder

   Former and current Meta employees filed a lawsuit alleging the company used discriminatory internal AI systems to select workers for mass layoffs.

   Why it matters

   The case could set a major legal precedent regarding how companies use automated algorithms to make hiring and firing decisions.