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Headlines · 23
- StepFun to join LA Hacks 2026 and host a Step 5 Preview workshop
StepFun announced it will be at UCLA on October 17–18 for LA Hacks 2026 to meet builders, exchange ideas and explore what's possible with Step 5 Preview. The company will also host a workshop on Step 5 Preview on Saturday, October 17, 8–9 PM PT at the James West Alumni Center.
阶跃星辰 StepFun · 🔥 8 - Step 5 Preview reaches #2 on OpenRouter weekly leaderboard one week after launch
StepFun says Step 5 Preview has climbed to second place on OpenRouter's weekly leaderboard one week after launch, with 19.5T tokens used in that period. The company adds that the model has held the #2 spot on the daily leaderboard since Oct 10 and thanks developers building with it; no further benchmark or capability details were given.
阶跃星辰 StepFun · 🔥 8 - Doubao Phone Assistant SAEP notice ends with 155 apps refusing AI control
On 14 October the 30-day notice period for the Doubao Phone Assistant's Screen Automation Operation Declaration Protocol (SAEP) ended with 155 apps opting out of AI automation — 66 from Tencent, 23 from Alibaba, 14 from Kuaishou and 11 from Meituan, including WeChat, QQ, Taobao, Alipay, Tmall, Meituan and Honor of Kings, as well as AI apps like DeepSeek, Kimi and Kling. Users can still install those apps, but cannot have the assistant send WeChat messages, shop on Taobao or order food for them. A first prototype, the M153 (3,499 yuan, December 2025), was blocked for screen reading and simulated taps; the second-generation NaviX Ultra prefers MCP and A2A protocols with taps as a fallback and gives apps 30 days to refuse. Analysts say platforms are protecting entry points, user time, recommendation power and data ownership; rival StepFun's STEPX Neo Preview, which only calls APIs apps open voluntarily, has nearly 100 partners including Alipay, Meituan and Didi.
钛媒体 · 🔥 7 - Chinese LLM makers push into AI hardware to grab entry points and revenue
On Oct 13, StepFun chairman Yin Qi unveiled the STEPX Neo agent phone in Shanghai, while Alibaba's Qwen released two AI glasses and an AI headset in Hangzhou the same day, with both events showcasing AI capabilities. Earlier, ByteDance and ZTE's Nubia NaviX Ultra — better known as the "Doubao phone" — went on sale Sept 16 with over 360,000 reservations on JD.com, and Tencent's WorkBuddy open platform launched Sept 2 in Shenzhen with nine co-branded hardware devices spanning glasses, earbuds, recording cards and speakers. A former executive at a leading Chinese LLM company is quoted saying the push is mainly about capturing entry points, since users show little loyalty to models, and that selling devices is another monetization path; listed Zhipu spent 2.131 billion yuan on R&D in the first half, about 2.2x revenue, while MiniMax spent US$297 million, roughly 2.5x revenue, with both loss-making. The report notes no LLM company has disclosed accurate AI hardware sales figures, and hands-on tests found weak real-time translation accuracy and an AI phone that failed to complete a takeout order in several minutes.
36氪 人工智能 · 🔥 7 - Moore Threads completes Day-0 support for Step 5 Preview on MTT S5000
StepFun open-sourced its new Step 5 Preview model on October 15, and Moore Threads said the same day that its MTT S5000 compute card and accompanying MUSA software stack had already completed Day-0 adaptation for the model. According to the source, Step 5 Preview uses a sparse MoE architecture with 600B total parameters, 27B activated per token, and native support for contexts up to 1 million tokens. Moore Threads says the adaptation covers key areas including hybrid attention, mixed-precision inference and speculative decoding, giving developers a path to deploy long-context models on domestic compute.
AIbase AI新闻 · 🔥 6 - Step 5 Preview goes live on DeepInfra with 1M-token context
StepFun said its Step 5 Preview model is now available on DeepInfra, giving developers another route to call the preview release. According to the two companies, it is a 600B-parameter open-weight MoE with 27B active parameters, a 1M-token context window, text and vision input and FP8 precision, priced at $1.00 per 1M input tokens, $2.70 per 1M output tokens and $0.05 per 1M cached tokens. StepFun describes it as built for long-horizon agents in coding, frontend and finance work.
阶跃星辰 StepFun · 🔥 5 - OPPO taps Manus to bring multi-step agents to ColorOS 17
On October 13, OPPO announced a partnership with agent platform Manus to integrate its multi-step task execution into AI Mind Pilot's new Agent mode, planned to debut first on Find X10 series phones running ColorOS 17. According to OPPO's global website, the mode will initially support both Manus and ChatGPT with a free usage allowance, and existing subscribers can connect their own accounts to keep using their current plans. The article also cites Counterpoint and IDC third-quarter 2026 data: OPPO group shipments (including OnePlus and realme) fell more than 20% year over year with share down to 9%, while its China shipments fell 17.6% and its China share stood at about 15.5%. The same day, StepFun launched the STEPX Neo agent phone preview edition at 3,999 yuan, bundling the Step AOS system, Step models and 12 months of token credits.
钛媒体 · 🔥 4 - 155 apps reject Doubao Phone Assistant's SAEP protocol, leaving its agent vision stalled
TMTPost's Guangzhui Intelligence reports that Doubao Phone Assistant published the results of its Screen Automation Execution Protocol (SAEP) disclosure period on Oct 14, listing 155 apps that formally refused to let its AI act on their behalf — including WeChat, QQ, Taobao, Alipay, Meituan, Kuaishou, DeepSeek, Kimi, Pinduoduo, Xiaohongshu, WPS and several bank and carrier apps, with 66 Tencent-linked and 23 Alibaba-linked entries. ByteDance framed SAEP — with its three layers of app-declared boundaries, centralized policy decisions and system-level enforcement — as a way to set rules for GUI agents, but the report attributes the refusals to lost traffic gatekeeping and privacy worries, noting WeChat and Alipay had already triggered risk controls against the first Doubao phone. The piece contrasts this with StepFun's STEPX Neo, launched Oct 13, which takes an MCP+A2A approach and whose Amoo agent has partnerships with nearly 100 companies including Alipay, Tencent, Ctrip and Meituan, and with Meta's Muse, which Amazon cut off from shopping 13 days after launch.
钛媒体 · 🔥 3 - StepFun launches STEPX Neo, an 'agent-native' phone with Step AOS 1.0
On the evening of Oct 13, StepFun unveiled STEPX Neo, its first large-model-native agent phone, running what it calls the world's first agent-native operating system, Step AOS 1.0, plus the Amoo agent; the handset is ODM-manufactured with a Snapdragon 8-series chip, a transparent two-tone body and a dot-matrix rear display, and no price or ship date was given. StepFun says Step AOS is compatible with Android, Linux and RTOS and adds an agent runtime layer above the traditional system to schedule device and cloud compute, share data across apps and use a 'dual-domain, three-step' memory structure — simple tasks run locally, complex ones in the cloud, with undo and rollback — though the company admits completion is about 70%. Chairman Yin Qi said current on-device chips cannot support heavy agent demand and noted Step 5 Preview has 27B active parameters, so Amoo will still send many tasks to the cloud; meanwhile Doubao Phone Assistant's published refusal list shows 151 apps, including WeChat, Taobao, Meituan and Alipay, rejecting GUI automation.
钛媒体 · 🔥 3 - StepFun opens Step 5 Preview weights: 600B MoE, 1M-token context
StepFun released BF16 and FP8 weights for Step 5 Preview, its flagship long-horizon agent model, on Hugging Face and ModelScope, plus a technical blog and deployment guides; the sparse MoE model has 600B total and 27B active parameters, supports up to a 1M-token context with text and image input, and targets software engineering, professional knowledge work and finance. According to StepFun, the design uses a 92-layer narrow-deep architecture with 3:1 gated sliding-window to sparse global attention and Sparse GQA, where 8-token block indexing cuts index and top-k selection cost to one eighth, plus FP32 key states, fine-grained gradient clipping and long-horizon RL that trains context compression; it can be served via vLLM or SGLang with an OpenAI-compatible API, or run offline with Transformers. StepFun-cited data puts it at 44 on Artificial Analysis's Intelligence Index and second on OpenRouter's weekly and daily token charts (about 18.8T tokens in seven days), at roughly $0.71 per task versus $5.86 for Claude Opus 5, and reports it above Kimi K3 and GLM-5.3 on ALE-CLI, FrontierFinance and DRACO, behind GPT-6 Astra or Claude Opus 5.
阶跃星辰 · Hugging Face · 🔥 41 - Agent phones gain pace as Nubia and StepFun move in
According to a 36Kr news brief citing Shanghai Securities News, Nubia and StepFun's terminal unit have recently launched or iterated on so-called agent phones, pushing the category into faster deployment, while on-device AI filings in China are expanding and AI tries to rewrite how smartphones are used. The report says a contest over who defines the terminal has begun, but cross-app execution, data security, ecosystem coordination and cost control remain unresolved. Whether agent phones can anchor a new smartphone upgrade cycle is still for the market to decide.
36氪快讯 · 🔥 3 - QCon Shanghai 2026 to Focus on How AI Is Reshaping Software Engineering
OSChina reports that QCon Shanghai 2026 will run from October 22–24 under the theme "From Agent to Loop: How Is AI Reshaping Software Engineering?" According to the announcement, frontline practitioners from companies including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, Meituan, Xiaohongshu, Ant Group, Infinigence AI, StepFun, Kuaishou, Baidu, NetEase, Microsoft, Huawei, Trip.com and Ping An will share experience across AI applications, agent engineering, AI coding, infrastructure, data systems, quality, security, SRE and embodied intelligence.
开源中国 · 🔥 0 - StepFun launches Step Studio AI terminal-native dev tool
On October 13, StepFun released Step Studio, an AI terminal-native development tool aimed at makers. According to DoNews, users can describe requirements in natural language instead of writing complex code to generate AI apps, games, agents and Skill capabilities. The tool targets the STEPX agent terminal, with StepFun saying it aims to lower the development barrier and enrich the agent ecosystem.
DoNews · 🔥 0 - StepFun's STEPX Neo model-native agent phone launches at 3,999 yuan
StepFun's device arm has released STEPX Neo, described as its first model-native agent phone, built around the personal agent Amoo and the Step AOS system with a combined model-software-hardware pitch; the early edition is priced at 3,999 yuan in carbon black and silicon silver. In an Ifanr hands-on, Amoo handled multi-step cross-app tasks such as booking a flight with a conditional switch to rail and a budget cap, answered questions about circled on-screen content, delivered a scheduled news briefing, and let the reviewer build an App, Skill or Agent via conversation in Step Studio and push it to the phone for testing and publishing. The company says it has partnerships with roughly 100 firms and products including Alipay, Tencent, Ctrip, DiDi, CapCut, Amap and Meituan; buyers get 12 months of a 10-billion-token monthly allowance, and the first 10,000 qualifying users receive a "star ticket" for a zero-cost swap to any new STEPX device within five years (terms per the product page). The piece also flags unresolved heat, battery-life and ecosystem gaps, and the experience comes from an outlet review rather than independent testing.
爱范儿 · 🔥 0 - MiniMax opens first Tmall flagship store selling M Plan subscriptions
Chinese model maker MiniMax has opened its first official brand flagship store on Tmall, listing its M Plan subscription in three tiers — Go, Explore and Build — available monthly or annually, according to multiple Chinese outlets reporting on Oct 13. AIbase said an opening promotion puts the Go monthly plan at about 24.5 yuan for a first order, a price cited by only one source. The reports also note that Tmall launched a token top-up hub called "AI Space Station" bringing together subscriptions from Alibaba Cloud, Zhipu, Kimi, MiniMax and DeepSeek, and that Zhipu and Qwen Office have already opened stores while Kimi and StepFun are in talks to follow. Model vendors had previously sold subscriptions mainly through their own websites.
IT之家 AI · 🔥 0 - Chinese medical firms queue up to invest in AI and chip funds
A report by VCBeat (republished by 36Kr and TMTPost) says that after Jiu'an Medical proved out a "medical main business plus tech investment" model, listed medical companies including Yuwell Medical, Mindray-like diagnostics firm Mingde Biotech, Intco Medical, Yifan Pharmaceutical and Amoytop Biotech have collectively subscribed to funds whose investment focus is AI and semiconductors. Jiu'an Medical's portfolio reportedly includes Moonshot AI, MetaX, StepFun and Zhengxing Innovation, and its net profit rose 233.66% year on year in the first half of 2026; Yuwell Hong Kong put in HK$94.9 million for shares in CFTC Summit Fund SPC vehicles and planned to commit up to RMB 500 million to a fund managed by Sino IC Capital. The report adds that most listed medical firms still stay in healthcare, and industry figures warn that AI and semiconductor asset valuations are already high, so raising exposure now may not repeat Jiu'an's timing.
36氪 人工智能 · 🔥 0 - StepFun's Step 5 Preview lands on Tencent WorkBuddy with two weeks free
StepFun announced on October 12 that its flagship Step 5 Preview model is now available on Tencent's all-scenario AI office workspace WorkBuddy, with exclusive free access from October 12 to October 25, 2026. WorkBuddy users can use the model for deep research, information retrieval, data analysis, and document and PPT generation, including sustained execution of multi-step tasks. Step 5 Preview launched on September 20 with a sparse MoE architecture, 600B total parameters and 27B activated, a 1M-token context window and native text and vision input; StepFun says it plans to open-source the full weights on October 15.
IT之家 AI · 🔥 0 - Step 5 Preview hits OpenRouter's New & Trending leaderboard
StepFun said Step 5 Preview has landed on OpenRouter's New & Trending leaderboard. The company thanked users for trying it and partners for bringing it into their workflows. The source gave no benchmark figures or ranking details.
阶跃星辰 StepFun · 🔥 0 - Study: Only 3.6% of 857 Chinese frontier AI releases disclosed safety results
SemiAnalysis counted 857 model releases from nine leading Chinese developers between 2021 and 15 September 2026 and found only 31 (3.6%) came with a matching published safety result — just nine (1.1%) at or before launch — while 813 (94.9%) had no safety disclosure at all. It argues Beijing's regime is speed-first: the AI Safety Governance Framework 3.0 and a burst of agent, minor-protection and application rules govern content, deployment and process, but impose no frontier-risk duties tied to training compute or capability. The piece also traces the 2026 US-China Super Intelligence Dialogue and the White House Accord on Super Intelligence.
SemiAnalysis · 🔥 0 - Step 5 Preview free for a week across several coding tools
StepFun says its flagship model for agentic and professional work, Step 5 Preview, is free for one week in OpenCode, Nous Portal (with Hermes Agent), Cline and Kilo. Partners describe it as a 600B-parameter MoE with 27B active per token, a 1M-token context and vision, with OpenCode noting zero data retention. Cline claims it scores ahead of Kimi K3 and GLM-5.3 on DeepSWE, while Nous says its 33.89 Hermes Index score matches GPT-6 Luna — both are partner claims.
阶跃星辰 StepFun · 🔥 0 - Geely launches Smart Charging with StepFun-built PowerMind energy AI, claims 2.2 MW peak
Geely Auto Group unveiled "Geely Smart Charging," an AI-based charging system it says reaches a 2,250 kW (2.2 MW) single-gun peak while keeping maximum temperature under 65°C and extending battery cycle life by more than 20%. The system runs on the StarRui PowerMind energy model co-developed with StepFun and includes AI thermal control, AI fast charge, AI smart charge and automatic charging robots; CATARC testing cited by Geely measured a Lynk 10 going 10–97% in 8 minutes 40 seconds at a 1,093 kW peak. Geely also launched new Aegis Short Blade ultra-short battery variants (up to 12C) and the new Geely Galaxy E5 at a limited-time 97,800–137,800 yuan, and plans more than 22,000 charging stations by end-2027.
量子位（原生 RSS） · 🔥 0 - StepFun's STEPX Neo agent-native phone to launch October 13
StepFun Terminal has announced that STEPX Neo, its first "large-model-native agent phone," will be unveiled on October 13 at 7 p.m. The device runs an agent-native operating system called Step AOS and ships with a new personal agent, Amoo; in company demonstrations it syncs documents and generates a slide deck from a single spoken instruction, calls a courier to deliver a paper document, or reads a concert poster and then handles ticket purchase, travel arrangements and even drafts a leave request. It has a transparent two-tone body, a large matrix rear camera module with dual lenses and a secondary interaction display, and StepFun says it passed the L3 tier of China's first national standard series for AI terminal intelligence grading.
量子位（原生 RSS） · 🔥 0 - StepFun puts up billboard along US-101 on the way into San Francisco
StepFun posted on X that, as SF Tech Week gets underway, its signage appears along US-101 on the way into San Francisco. The post says builders, researchers and teams are gathering across the Bay Area this week and that the company is "already part of the view," but it announces no model or product news.
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