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Cyprus Faces Energy Strain As Cold Wave Hits: Authorities Call For Power Conservation

A cold wave sweeping across Cyprus threatens to test the island’s energy infrastructure in the coming days. Chará Kousiappa, spokesperson for the Cyprus Transmission System Operator (TSOC), warned that the country could face serious challenges as energy demand surges.

“It will be a tough situation,” Kousiappa told the Cyprus News Agency. “We’re already seeing very high demand, and we’re continuously assessing the situation. We hope things will go smoothly, but we’re ready to act if necessary.”

The cold front is expected to hit shortly, with the most critical period for electricity demand falling between 6:00 PM and 9:00 PM—when renewable energy production drops off. During these peak hours, the power supply will be under significant pressure, as several key power units are offline due to scheduled maintenance or technical issues.

TSOC is closely monitoring the situation, and Kousiappa hopes that some of the power units currently under repair at the Dhekelia and Vasilikos stations can be brought back online before temperatures fall. She also emphasized the importance of energy conservation, urging the public to reduce electricity usage during peak hours and shift high-energy tasks, like laundry and dishwashing, to the day when solar power is at its peak.

As Cyprus braces for a difficult few days, authorities are calling on citizens to play their part in ensuring the stability of the island’s power grid.

Chinese AI Models Gain Ground In The U.S. As Companies Seek Lower AI Costs

Chinese-built AI models are gaining traction among U.S. businesses as improving performance and significantly lower costs prompt companies to rethink their reliance on leading American systems.

Models from developers including DeepSeek, Z.ai and Alibaba are increasingly being viewed as viable alternatives to offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic, particularly for tasks where cutting-edge performance is not essential.

Open-Source Models Gain Ground

According to OpenRouter, a platform that provides developers with access to multiple AI models, Chinese models have accounted for more than 30% of tokens used by U.S. companies each week since early February, with their share peaking at 46%.

That marks a sharp increase from an average of 11% over the previous year, reflecting growing demand for open-source and open-weight models as businesses become more focused on controlling AI costs.

The shift comes as Washington tightens oversight of advanced AI technologies. In June, OpenAI delayed the release of a new model at the request of the U.S. government, while export restrictions on Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable models were later lifted.

“Chinese AI models are particularly attractive to American companies now as AI costs skyrocket,” Kyle Chan, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center, told CNBC. “Companies are becoming much more cost-conscious.”

Cost Is Driving Adoption

As enterprises scale AI deployments, many are shifting routine workloads to lower-cost models that deliver comparable performance. Unlike most proprietary systems from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, open-source and open-weight models allow developers greater control over deployment, customization and operating costs. AI startup Lindy recently migrated all of its workloads from Anthropic’s Claude models to DeepSeek.

“We did it, and you could see that cost curve go down, like, crash to the ground,” CEO Flo Crivello told CNBC, adding that the move is expected to save the company millions of dollars.

Vercel also reported rapid adoption of Z.ai’s GLM 5.2 model after its June launch.

“Price is doing the work here,” said Harpreet Arora, the company’s head of agentic infrastructure. “When a task doesn’t need the best model, teams are beginning to route it to the cheapest one that’s good enough.”

According to OpenRouter, some Chinese open-source models can cost between 60% and 90% less than comparable offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic.

Narrowing The Performance Gap

Lower prices are only part of the story. Chinese AI models are also closing the performance gap with leading U.S. systems.

Chan estimates they now trail the most advanced American models by roughly six to nine months, while OpenRouter’s Justin Summerville said the latest open-source models perform well enough for all but the most demanding AI workloads.

GLM 5.2 came within one percentage point of Anthropic’s Opus 4.8 on a widely followed agentic benchmark while costing roughly one-fifth as much. Lindy also reported performance improvements after switching to DeepSeek V4.

“Chinese models like Z.ai and Alibaba’s Qwen are becoming attractive options because they offer a compelling balance of performance and cost,” said Cien Solon, founder and CEO of LaunchLemonade.

As AI adoption accelerates, companies are increasingly weighing whether the highest-performing proprietary models justify their premium pricing. For many everyday workloads, a growing number are concluding that lower-cost Chinese alternatives are good enough.

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