Upstart (UPST -5.08%) looks set to be one of Wednesday's biggest movers having soared 25% after hours, after beating fourth-quarter estimates. The AI-based lending platform operator saw Q4 revenue rocket 55% year over year, from a 68% jump in loan transactions. The business isn't quite into profit yet, but the quarter's $2.8 million net loss beats last year's $42.4 million loss.

Sources say Chinese tech giant Baidu (BIDU -4.70%) is set to release its next-generation AI in the second half of the year, hoping to extend the lower-cost approach raised by DeepSeek.

• Enhancements in multimodal capabilities: The new model, Ernie 5.0, is expected to include enhancements in combining texts, images, video, and audio.
• "Reduced by more than 90% over 12 months": At the World Governments Summit in Dubai this week, Baidu CEO Robin Li said he expects the cost of training AI models to fall dramatically. He also spoke of open-source development as a way to "spread the technology much faster," which could threaten proprietary models.

Japan-based SoftBank posted a surprise third-quarter loss of 369 billion yen ($2.4 billion) today, after its Vision Fund investments suffered a $2.3 billion dip. Analysts had expected a $1.5 billion profit.

• Stargate billions: It comes after founder and CEO Masayoshi Son appeared at January's Stargate launch and talked about investing up to $500 billion in the AI project.
• Questions over funding: Son says the company's future is in AI, as sources suggest he plans to invest as much as $25 billion in OpenAI. Time will tell if he has the cash for his ambitions. To learn more about Son's vision for the future of the world, check out this recent Motley Fool Money podcast.