Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun says he is trying to establish the Tron blockchain, which he founded and launched in 2018, as the virtual asset industry’s answer to Swift – the main messaging network used by the global banking system – on the back of a surge in stablecoin transactions around the world. “I estimate that our facilitated transactions will exceed Swift’s in the next five years,” Sun, 35, said in an interview with the South China Morning Post. He added that the transaction...
E-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding has won “consumer mindshare” amid its instant commerce push, according to company executives and analysts, to regain growth momentum in the highly competitive domestic market. The Chinese tech conglomerate’s New York-listed shares jumped 13 per cent to close at US$135 on Friday, after reporting robust earnings growth in the June quarter on the back of confidence on the mainland’s instant commerce sector. On Friday’s earnings call, Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu...
Asia’s rising middle classes are not just fuelling economic growth – they’re reshaping consumption itself. Nowhere is this transformation more visible than in the region’s embrace of healthier eating. From Hong Kong to Jakarta, a new generation of consumers is driving a quiet revolution in food choices. But is this a more lasting realignment of preferences or merely a pandemic-fuelled detour? Market research suggests consumer attention on health will grow. China’s healthcare-related consumer...
China has virtually overcome crippling US tech restrictions, according to a senior executive at Huawei Technologies, as mainland-developed computing infrastructure, AI systems and other software now rival those from the world’s largest economy. Shenzhen-based Huawei, which was added to Washington’s trade blacklist in May 2019, has already “built an ecosystem entirely independent of the United States”, said Tao Jingwen, president of the firm’s quality, business process and information technology...
Huawei Technologies saw a nearly one-third decline in profit in the first half of the year, despite reclaiming the throne in China’s smartphone market, according to a filing from its shareholding entity Huawei Investment & Holding. Net profit during the period fell 32 per cent year on year to 37.2 billion yuan (US$5.2 billion), while revenue grew 4 per cent to 427 billion yuan, according to a filing to the Shanghai Clearing House on Friday. Privately owned Huawei regularly discloses its...
Alibaba Group Holding, China’s e-commerce and cloud computing services giant, on Friday reported a 78 per cent surge in profit for the June quarter, while “robust AI demand” led to a 26 per cent revenue growth for its cloud business. Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders advanced 78 per cent to 43.1 billion yuan (US$6 billion) in the period, up from 24.3 billion yuan a year earlier, primarily due to “mark-to-market changes from our equity investments and gains from the disposal of the...
Eric Trump, one of the final acts in Hong Kong’s biggest gathering of cryptocurrency enthusiasts, praised the city and China during his fireside chat with the organiser of the Bitcoin Asia conference. “There is no question that you have made an unbelievable mark on cryptocurrencies,” said the second son of US President Donald Trump in his chat with Bitcoin Asia’s CEO David Bailey. “There is no question that China is a hell of a power when it comes to this.” The younger Trump, who was in Hong...
Beijing-based AI chipmaker Cambricon Technologies, widely seen as a potential alternative to Nvidia in the Chinese market, has issued a rare warning about supply chain risks and excessive speculation in its shares, which have gained 521 per cent in the past 12 months. The company’s Shanghai-listed stock nearly doubled in the last month on a wider rally fuelled by China’s favourable policy support of local artificial intelligence chips and a new AI model from DeepSeek tailored for upcoming...
Tencent Holdings is aiming for “aggressive” growth in the international cloud computing market, on the back of the growing appetite overseas for Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) models, according to a senior executive. That sharpened focus by Tencent stems from how its overseas cloud operations have been expanding “the fastest among all [its business] segments”, with “high double-digit growth over the past few years”, said senior executive vice-president Dowson Tong Tao-sang, who serves as...
China is likely to see 300,000 driverless cabs operate in its four top-tier cities as early as 2030, buoyed by advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and its highly competitive electric vehicle (EV) sector, UBS said on Thursday. The number of robotaxis on the mainland was expected to jump to 4 million by the late 2030s, as more Chinese passengers were willing to embrace new technologies, said Paul Gong, head of China automotive research at UBS. “Given the fast development of technologies...
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up, xAI, on Thursday released a new “speedy and economical” agentic coding model, marking its entry into a key focus area for AI companies. An agentic coding tool is an AI-powered software application that can autonomously perform coding-related tasks. XAI’s model, called grok-code-fast-1, would be available for free for a limited time, with select launch partners including GitHub Copilot and Windsurf. Its “strength lies in delivering strong performance...
Hong Kong has the conditions to become a major hub for virtual assets, rivalling markets like the US and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), but the city’s regulators must act swiftly to realise its potential, according to Zhao Changpeng, founder and largest shareholder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance. In an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post on Friday, Zhao, widely known as CZ, said the Hong Kong government had shown a “very clear attitude towards embracing Web3” and had the...
Discussions with the White House to allow American AI chip company Nvidia to sell a less advanced version of its next-generation advanced GPU chip to China will take time, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Thursday. When asked about White House talks on Blackwell chip sales to China in a Fox Business Network interview with The Claman Countdown, Huang said the discussions had started. “The conversation will take a while, but … President [Donald] Trump understands that having the world build AI on...
Bitcoin Asia kicked off in Hong Kong on Thursday, as Hong Kong strives to balance its goal of becoming a crypto hub while pushing forward a regulatory regime to mitigate financial risks. In its second edition, the conference featured experts who said that Hong Kong could become a hub for shaping the global digital asset regulatory landscape. Two points were brought up: using asset treasury holdings for a broader ecosystem for cryptocurrency and global regulatory leadership to coordinate and...
Open-source artificial intelligence (AI) models from China are seeing increased adoption across various industries, according to research firm Frost & Sullivan, as major developers step up the commercial application of their systems. Developers such as DeepSeek, Alibaba Group Holding and Baidu have shifted from pushing their models’ “extreme performance” towards prioritising usability, cost efficiency and broad ecosystem support to accelerate industry adoption, according to Neil Wang, global...
SenseTime has significantly narrowed its losses while achieving robust growth in its generative artificial intelligence business in the first half of 2025, as China pushes a nationwide initiative to advance the AI industry. The Hong Kong-listed company on Thursday posted revenue of 2.36 billion yuan (US$330 million) for the six months ended June 30, marking a 35.6 per cent increase from a year earlier. Gross profit rose 18.4 per cent year on year to 907.8 million yuan, although gross margin...
Baidu, one of China’s artificial intelligence champions, on Thursday unveiled its Baige 5.0 AI infrastructure platform – powered by a mix of semiconductors, including those designed by its Kunlunxin unit – to raise the efficiency of DeepSeek’s open-source models. The Beijing-based AI and internet search giant’s upgraded platform delivers a speedier network connection, increased computing power, and enhanced model training and inferencing capabilities, according to executive vice-president Shen...
Nvidia’s stock declined more than 5 per cent in after-hours trading on Thursday after it detailed challenges and uncertainties in the China market, despite robust quarterly financial results. Shares of the US semiconductor giant closed flat at US$181.6, but dropped as low as US$172.45 after posting revenue growth of 56 per cent to US$46.7 billion for the three months that ended July 27. However, revenues from China, including Hong Kong, declined 24 per cent to US$2.8 billion, according to its...
Hong Kong stands at a crossroads in the global artificial intelligence (AI) landscape. With advanced digital infrastructure, world-class universities and proximity to the mainland’s fast-moving AI industry, the city is well-positioned to serve as a bridge between East and West AI ecosystems. The 2025 budget has set aside HK$1 billion (US$128.4 million) for the establishment of an AI Research and Development Institute, which is set to launch next year. Recent AI studies provide a sobering...
China’s tech industry has hailed Beijing’s latest strategy to widely apply artificial intelligence to economic and social enterprises amid hopes the move could boost market prospects for local suppliers of chips, servers and AI solutions. Beijing’s decision to implement AI in research, industry and consumption has further boosted confidence in the sector, particularly in computing power and domestic AI chips, amplifying the momentum triggered by DeepSeek’s V3.1 AI model. China’s AI ecosystem,...
Huawei Technologies has launched new memory products that can improve the efficiency of artificial intelligence (AI) computing, in the company’s latest effort to double down on its hardware business. The three “AI solid-state drive (SSD)” products – OceanDisk EX 560, OceanDisk SP 560 and OceanDisk LC 560 – are aimed at solving bottlenecks faced by data centres in AI training and inference, including slow inference speed and limited data capacity, the company said at a launch event in Shanghai on...
Chinese on-demand local services giant Meituan said its second-quarter earnings fell sharply, as it faced off against Alibaba Group Holding and JD.com in a costly delivery price war. Meituan’s management, however, said on Wednesday’s earnings call that the company would not be “greatly affected by a short-term price war”, highlighting its operational efficiency. Still, the management said the company would continue to prioritise growth over profitability in instant commerce. They also projected...
Hesai Group, one of the world’s largest makers of automotive Lidar sensors, received the green light from China’s securities regulator to sell new shares in Hong Kong. The Shanghai-based company plans to issue up to 51.24 million shares on the Hong Kong stock exchange, according to a filing with the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) on Tuesday. The filing confirmed that the CSRC reviewed and acknowledged Hesai’s materials, without disclosing the fundraising size and timetable for...
Alibaba Group Holding’s AI and cloud computing unit on Wednesday released the Wan2.2-S2V tool, its latest open-source artificial intelligence model that generates expressive, film-quality character videos from a static image and an audio clip. The new model forms part of Alibaba Cloud’s Wan2.2 family, which the company last month touted as the AI industry’s first open-source large video-generation models incorporating the so-called Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture. Hangzhou-based Alibaba...
Ant International, Standard Chartered Bank and the Swift system said on Wednesday they were collaborating on a global cross-border remittance service that allowed direct transfers from overseas banks to users’ home wallet apps, backed by Alipay+. The programme’s live trials are limited to Standard Chartered Bank accounts and allow participants to send cash to 36 digital wallets around the world operated by Alipay+, a cross-border payment product run by Ant International. Most of its customers...
Cambricon Technologies, the Beijing-based chipmaker seen as a potential alternative to Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs), reported a record revenue surge in the first half amid a Chinese stock market frenzy driven by DeepSeek’s breakthrough AI models. Cambricon’s revenue surged 4,348 per cent year on year to 2.88 billion yuan (US$403.8 million) in the first six months of 2025, a record high for the company since it went public in 2020. Profit reached 1.04 billion yuan, reversing a net...
Apple plans to hold its big fall product launch on September 9, when the company is expected to introduce an iPhone 17 line-up that includes a new skinnier version of its signature device. The event will begin at 10am and stream online, continuing a strategy of virtual launches that began in the Covid era. The tagline for the event is “awe dropping”, according to an invitation posted online and sent to media. The focus of the event will be the company’s new smartphones, including an updated base...
OpenAI is making changes to its popular chatbot following a lawsuit alleging that a teenager who died by suicide this spring relied on ChatGPT as a coach. In a blog post Tuesday, the artificial intelligence company said that it will update ChatGPT to better recognise and respond to different ways that people may express mental distress – such as by explaining the dangers of sleep deprivation and suggesting that users rest if they mention they feel invincible after being up for two nights. The...
The city of Foshan, the country’s furniture and ceramics manufacturing hub in southern Guangdong province, has rolled out multiple initiatives to support the robotics industry in the latest example of how local governments are embracing the country’s strategic industries. The Greater Bay Area city launched two industrial funds worth at least 3.5 billion yuan (US$488 million) combined, which would be “professionally managed” for the robotics industry, Foshan Vice Mayor Liu Jie said at a press...
Chinese autonomous driving technology firm Pony.ai expects to deploy a fleet of robotaxis in Hong Kong after completing regulatory hurdles, while downplaying potential competition from Tesla. “We have already set a footprint in Guangzhou and we are eyeing Hong Kong,” chief financial officer Leo Wang said at a media event in the city on Tuesday. He said Pony.ai needed to work with local authorities and partners to explore the best way forward. On working with the city’s Transport Department, Wang...
DeepSeek’s recently released V3.1 AI model has unleashed fresh optimism about the prospects of China developing advanced artificial intelligence semiconductors, according to analysts. The Hangzhou-based start-up’s updated model, which supports an innovative data format called UE8M0 FP8, was “ushering in a booming domestic computing power chain”, Huatai Securities analysts said in a research note on Tuesday. That architecture showed that the synergy between mainland-designed software and chips...
Kylin Software, a unit of state-owned China Electronics Corp, on Tuesday unveiled V11, the latest version of its operating system (OS) that features AI capabilities and extensive support for locally designed semiconductors. V11 provided deep artificial intelligence integration that brought out a “smart and efficient” experience for office use, while delivering expanded compatibility with a range of Chinese-designed and developed integrated circuits, the company said during its product launch at...
Chinese humanoid robot makers – including Unitree Robotics, AgiBot, Galbot, Engine AI and UBTech Robotics – have become early adopters of Nvidia’s latest product that enables their machines to have real-time, intelligent interactions with people. The Jetson AGX Thor developer kit and production modules, which Nvidia launched on Monday, are computers designed to power robots across industries including manufacturing, logistics, transport, healthcare, agriculture and retail. Built on an Nvidia...
The hottest company in China right now is Cambricon Technologies, an artificial intelligence chipmaker whose stock has surged about 10-fold over the past two years, driven by expectations that it could be a serious challenger to Nvidia in the mainland market. The frenzy over Cambricon, whose stock is trading at an eye-watering trailing 12-month price-to-earnings ratio above 4,000 – compared to under 60 for Nvidia – reflects a growing belief in China that the country is on a path to develop an AI...
Hong Kong’s government-owned wealth fund has partnered with one of China’s leading artificial intelligence agencies to attract global talent to the city, as it strengthens its commitment to transform into a technology hub. As part of the inaugural AI Global Talents Connect initiative, the Hong Kong Investment Corporation (HKIC) would collaborate with the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (BAAI) to establish an “international hub for AI talent”, the two organisations said on Tuesday. The...
Prices are rising across Japan, but not for the components of chipmaking gear. Tokyo Electron supplier Marumae is seeking out deals to change that. Many Japanese makers of vacuum parts found in chip tools have yet to reap gains from an artificial intelligence boom that is spurring billions of dollars of spending on Nvidia chips and other hardware, according to Marumae president Toshikazu Maeda. That is because such manufacturers are fighting with dozens of other companies in Japan that...
Chinese AI start-up Vast aims to take on global tech giants such as Tencent Holdings and Google in developing 3D AI models, which allow creators to generate three-dimensional visual content with text or image inputs, an increasingly competitive field that has seen the entrance of influential players such as AI pioneer Li Fei-fei. Beijing-based Vast, established in 2023, aims “to let everyone create 3D content with zero barriers and zero cost”, and potentially create a TikTok-like platform for...
[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] The world has seen plenty of change over the past two years, yet one thing has stayed the same since 30th November, 2022, and that is the overwhelming curiosity surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) from the day OpenAI launched ChatGPT. Those who have written AI off in the early days may now be in regret, as a survey conducted by Harvard Business Review revealed that 69% of early AI adopters already see tangible...
China’s domestic server and chipmakers are entering a “super cycle” as the country’s local governments spend lavishly on computing infrastructure to support artificial intelligence development. The AI Computing Power Concept Index, compiled by Chinese financial data provider Wind and comprising 54 component stocks, hit a record high on Monday, with an increase of 166 per cent over the past 52 weeks. The frenzy was stoked by DeepSeek’s hint last week that it has changed its data format to support...
E-commerce firm PDD Holdings, which operates low-cost platforms Pinduoduo in China and Temu internationally, easily beat market estimates for quarterly revenue on Monday, although net profit fell due to investments to ward off intensifying competition. US-listed shares of the company jumped nearly 12 per cent in premarket trading, buoyed by adjusted earnings per ADS of 22.07 yuan, which exceeded estimates of 15.74 yuan. The Chinese government has been seeking to boost domestic consumption to...
Huawei Technologies has begun a major restructuring of its cloud computing unit as the Chinese tech giant sharpens its focus on artificial intelligence amid the Sino-US tech war, according to sources and Chinese media reports. The subsidiary – responsible for AI model development, cloud services and data centre solutions – kicked off the restructuring on Friday, merging several key departments to prioritise AI-related business, according to two employees involved, who requested anonymity because...
Cambricon Technologies became the costliest stock in mainland China’s equities market, as the Beijing-based chipmaker replaced the liquor distiller Kweichow Moutai in a sign of the rising significance of artificial intelligence (AI) in the world’s second-largest capital market. Trading under the symbol 688256 in Shanghai, Cambricon’s shares jumped 11.60 per cent on Monday to a record 1,384.93 yuan, giving it 579.38 billion yuan (US$81 billion) in market value. The stock has more than doubled in...
US tech billionaire Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up xAI has open-sourced Grok 2.5, an earlier version of its model series, intensifying the global race to challenge China’s lead in making AI products freely available for anyone to use, modify and share. Musk said on social media platform X.com over the weekend that Grok 2.5, touted as the company’s “best model last year”, was uploaded to Hugging Face, the world’s largest open-source AI platform. He added that Grok 3 would become...
Taiwan’s Quanta and HTC are seen as possible contract manufacturers for Google’s imminent AI glasses, as such products are expected to emerge as essential mobile devices that will drive rapid expansion across the industry. Google is rumoured to have completed development of its first artificial intelligence-enabled glasses, which are reportedly to be made in Taiwan. But the US search giant has yet to decide on a contract manufacturer. Quanta was in charge of prototype design and is a strong...
An Israeli hospital that has achieved a breakthrough in cultivating kidneys in laboratories is seeking funding, including from China, to advance into clinical trials, according to the project’s lead researcher. Sheba Medical Centre, in collaboration with Tel Aviv University, said it had successfully grown a synthetic 3D organ culture, or organoid, that was the first to survive beyond 34 weeks, marking a significant milestone in regenerative medicine. Previous attempts had not exceeded four...
A unit of Taiwanese consumer electronics giant Asus is developing a supercomputer, powered by Nvidia chips, that is expected to boost the island’s computing capacity by at least 50 per cent, according to a senior executive. That infrastructure, a collaboration between Taiwan AI Cloud and the island’s National Centre for High-Performance Computing, is expected to launch its initial phase with a capacity of 80 petaflops in December, said Peter Wu, CEO of Asus Cloud and Taiwan AI Cloud, in an...
Chinese smartphone maker Vivo unveiled a mixed-reality headset that resembles Apple’s Vision Pro in name, design and interface, but weighs about 35 per cent less and is likely to cost one third as much. The Vivo Vision is similar to the Apple gadget that is controlled with intuitive eye tracking and hand gestures, according to information published on Vivo’s website on Thursday. But the Vivo device weighs 398 grams, much less than its US rival, which weighs at least 600g, addressing one of the...
Apple assembly partner Foxconn has recalled about 300 Chinese engineers from a factory in India, the latest setback for the iPhone maker’s push to rapidly expand in the country. The extraction of Chinese workers from the factory of Yuzhan Technology, a Foxconn component unit, in southern Tamil Nadu state is the second such move in a few months. Foxconn has started flying in engineers from Taiwan to replace staff leaving, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named as the...
Dongfeng Motor, a major state-owned Chinese carmaker, plans to privatise its Hong Kong-traded unit and list its electric vehicle (EV) subsidiary as part of a transition towards electrification. The company – based in Wuhan, the capital of central Hubei province – is offering shareholders HK$6.68 (US$0.85) per share, valuing the listed unit at HK$55.1 billion, according to a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange late on Friday. The offer represents an 11.9 per cent premium over the closing...
Ether surged to a record for the first time in almost four years, with the second-largest cryptocurrency benefiting from a renewal in demand after long being touted as a more adaptable alternative to the crypto market leader bitcoin. The native token of the Ethereum blockchain rose as much as 15 per cent to US$4,866.73, topping the previous all-time high of US$4,866.40 reached in November 2021. Ether has increased more than 40 per cent this year, outperforming bitcoin even as the original...