Odaily News OpenAI has unveiled a new lightweight artificial intelligence model that it says is capable of human-like reasoning with improved efficiency. The product will be closely watched after China's DeepSeek released the open source model. The model released on Friday is called "o3-mini" and is free to use. OpenAI first announced plans for o3-mini in December last year, while revealing the more powerful o3. Both models are designed to answer complex questions related to topics such as programming, mathematics and science. The timing of the launch was also expected. OpenAI said last year that it would release o3-mini in late January and o3 shortly thereafter. However, the industry marveled at the progress made by DeepSeek, which is key to lower costs and sparked heated discussions. OpenAI is currently seeking to raise $40 billion at a valuation of $300 billion. (Notebookcheck)