Now DeepSeek, a Chinese AI skunkworks, says its R1 AI model cost just $6 million to develop. Tests show that it performs about as well on many tasks as the newest systems from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI.

ECONOMIC UPDATE—MARKET OVERVIEW
As we detail in this and previous Trends Journals, with the exception of the United States, most developed and underdeveloped nation’s economies are sluggish and/or in Dragflation: declining economic growth and rising inflation.

HAS DEEPSEEK POPPED THE AI INDUSTRY’S BUBBLE?
Now DeepSeek, a Chinese AI skunkworks, says its R1 AI model cost just $6 million to develop. Tests show that it performs about as well on many tasks as the newest systems from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI.

TRUMP DOUBLE DOWNS ON MOVING GAZANS TO JORDAN, EGYPT
U.S. President Donald Trump last week doubled down on his plan to force Jordan and Egypt to accept Gazan refugees due to the extensive damage inside the enclave that Israel has bombed to ruins.

FOREVERLAND: TECH CAN’T MATCH THE BEST LONGEVITY BOOSTER
Bio hackers and gurus spending and investing on venture capital projects to produce radical tech-based life extension, are indeed becoming commonplace news in 2025, as we had forecast in our 2025 Top Trend, “WELCOME TO FOREVERLAND” (2 Jan 2025).

IRAN WARNS ISRAEL, U.S. AGAINST TARGETING ITS NUCLEAR SITES, SAYS IT WOULD LEAD TO ‘ALL-OUT WAR’
A top Iranian said Friday that an attack by Israel or the U.S. on one of its nuclear sites would lead to an “all-out” war and would be “one of the biggest historical mistakes” that Washington could make.

TOP TREND 2023: OFFICE BUILDING BUST
Investors began to return to commercial properties in the latter part of 2024 but are still avoiding office buildings as a category, the Financial Times reported.
Global Economy

SPOTLIGHT: BIGS GETTING BIGGER
As we had forecast, with Donald Trump winning the race to the White House and promising to cut corporate taxes and lower interest rates, M&A activity will accelerate. Here are the latest deals…FRONTIER TRIES AGAIN TO BUY SPIRIT AIRLINESSpirit Airlines has spurned a $2.1-billion cash-and-stock offer from Frontier Airlines, saying the offer was too low but that further discussions can continue.......

TOP TREND 2025, DRAGFLATION: EUROZONE ECONOMY FLATLINED IN FOURTH QUARTER
The Eurozone’s economy stagnated in 2024’s final three months as GDPs in France, Germany, and Ireland contracted.

SPOTLIGHT, TOP TREND 2025: THE TRUMP CARD
Trump Media and Technology Group, in which Donald Trump is the majority shareholder, is launching Truth.Fi, an investment venture that plans to buy Bitcoin and other digital assets as well as conventional financial instruments, the company has announced.
The Israel War

GAZA CEASEFIRE
The fragile ceasefire between Hamas and Israel remains in place, as tens of thousands of Gazans return to their homes throughout the enclave that have been reduced to rubble.

TRUMP DOUBLE DOWNS ON MOVING GAZANS TO JORDAN, EGYPT
U.S. President Donald Trump last week doubled down on his plan to force Jordan and Egypt to accept Gazan refugees due to the extensive damage inside the enclave that Israel has bombed to ruins.

TRUMP-APPOINTED BOARD MEMBER OF U.S. HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL COUNCIL SAYS GAZANS ARE ‘EVIL,’ NOT WORTHY OF ‘MERCY’
Martin Oliner, the head of Religious Zionists of America who was appointed by President Donald Trump as a board member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, penned a column published Saturday defending Trump’s decision to endorse the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
AI

FROM THE “AI BEHAVING BADLY” DEPARTMENT…
Earlier this month, David Birch, a British commentator on financial technology, posed a question to an AI at his online bank, Virgin Money. “I have two [savings accounts] with Virgin Money,” he asked. “How do I merge them.”

NEWEST AI’S OUTSMART OUR ABILITY TO MEASURE THEIR INTELLIGENCE
The abilities of early AIs could be measured according to several standard tests. As AI models became more sophisticated, the tests have had to become more difficult.

OPENAI DEBUTS “OPERATOR” AUTONOMOUS AGENT
On 23 January, OpenAI showed off its “Operator,” an AI agent that can travel the web and handle the details of routine tasks for you, such as making a restaurant reservation on the Open Table website or ordering groceries through Instacart.
Hi-Tech Science

TURNING JUNK PLASTIC INTO HIGH-GRADE PLASTIC
Some plastics are hard, literally and figuratively, to recycle—for example, acrylonitrile butadiene that’s used to make computer keyboards and protective headgear.

NANOPARTICLES PLUS LIGHT REVERSE PARKINSON’S SYMPTOMS
Parkinson’s Disease has been reversed in mice by combining nanoparticles with light in surgery-free experiments.

IS THE U.S. THE SAUDI ARABIA OF HYDROGEN?
As hydrogen elbows its way into the clean energy economy, a new map from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) shows huge reservoirs of hydrogen beneath the lower 48 states ready to be tapped.