A leading Chinese state media outlet has expressed support for the nation’s internet platform operators, emphasising their importance alongside hard-tech companies like chip manufacturers, as it adopts a positive tone that reflects Beijing’s friendly stance towards e-commerce companies. According to the editorial published by the Economic Daily on Wednesday, food delivery and “hard-tech” breakthroughs – such as advances in high-speed trains and aerospace technologies – represented two key...
Chinese search engine and AI giant Baidu and global taxi-hailing firm Uber Technologies have agreed to work together to deploy thousands of Baidu Apollo Go robotaxis in markets outside the US and mainland China, a move that comes as Tesla seeks to expand its robotaxis in the US. The multi-year deal will see robotaxis deployed in Asia and the Middle East later this year, according to a joint statement. It was unclear whether the partnership would include Hong Kong, where Baidu’s Apollo Go...
Huawei Technologies topped mainland China’s smartphone market in the second quarter – the first time in four years – “underscoring its strong brand appeal and effective shipment management”, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). However, China’s smartphone sales shrank 4 per cent to 69 million units in the April to June quarter due to weak consumption and reduced government subsidies for electronic devices, data from the consultancy released on Tuesday showed. It was the first...
Nvidia’s co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang lauded China’s progress in open source artificial intelligence and pledged to work with Chinese companies, as the chip designer driving the growth of AI resumes shipping its sought-after chips to the country. Large language models (LLM) developed by Chinese companies, including DeepSeek, Alibaba Group Holding, Tencent Holdings, MiniMax and Baidu, were “world class”, “developed here and shared openly”, and had spurred AI developments worldwide, Huang...
Alibaba Group Holding will roll out a programme called “Super Saturdays” over the next 100 days to lure more consumers to its platform, while escalating a price war against Meituan and JD.com in the mainland’s on-demand delivery services market. Under Alibaba’s instant commerce brand Taobao Shangou, “Super Saturdays” would offer consumers up to 188 yuan (US$26) in subsidies for the purchase and delivery of low-cost goods such as milk tea and breakfast meals, according to a report by state-owned...
Unitree Robotics’ founder and CEO Wang Xingxing on Tuesday said that China’s humanoid robots have seized the attention of “people from around the world” who are now willing to buy them. The 35-year-old Wang shared his assessment of the industry at a government-hosted press conference in Beijing, where he forecast China’s robotics sector would expand at a rapid pace this year. He added that Unitree – one of the six “Little Dragons” from tech hub Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province –...
The company behind the general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) agent Manus laid off most of its staff in Beijing last week, according to local media reports, amid a reorganisation in line with relocating its headquarters to Singapore. Manus AI has also scrubbed all of its content on Chinese social media platforms Weibo and RedNote. Logging in returns this message: “Manus is not available in your region.” That marked a change from the earlier message that said its “Chinese version is under...
China has officially introduced a controversial national cyber ID system, despite concerns from some experts and netizens over privacy and censorship. The system aims to “protect the security of citizens’ identity information”, according to regulations that went into effect on Tuesday, backed by the Ministry of Public Security, the Cyberspace Administration of China, and four other authorities. The app, whose beta version was launched last year, issues an encrypted virtual ID composed of random...
CMB International Securities (CMBI), the brokerage arm of China Merchants Bank, said it received a virtual asset licence from Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission, making it the first mainland broker to conduct cryptocurrency trading services and other activities in the city. The licence, issued on Monday, allowed CMBI to engage in a variety of virtual asset services, including trading, custody and advisory services. In addition, it can provide guidance on risk management, regulatory...
Subway trains across the southern Chinese megacity of Shenzhen welcomed an unusual new set of passengers on Monday, as the city deployed a fleet of delivery robots to restock convenience stores scattered around its subway system. Dozens of squat delivery robots have now begun riding subway trains across the network during off-peak hours, exiting at each station where a 7-Eleven is located to make deliveries, according to a report by local news outlet SZNews. The project is the first of its kind...
Nvidia said it would sell a made-for-China computer chip to customers in the country, while its founder and CEO Jensen Huang is in Beijing for his third visit this year to the world’s second-largest economy amid a deepening and widening rivalry with the US. The US government has “assured Nvidia that licences will be granted” for exporting the H20 chip, a made-for-China product that was less powerful than Nvidia’s gold-standard acceleration chip, according to a Tuesday statement by the...
Driverless cabs in China could account for 6 per cent of the country’s total taxi market, aided by advanced digital infrastructure and consumer willingness to embrace new technologies, according to HSBC. The potential addressable market for robotaxis in mainland China was estimated to be around US$40 billion a year, the bank said in a report on Monday, without elaborating on when local operators of driverless cabs could achieve the goal. The projection represented 6.2 per cent of the total taxi...
China’s fast-developing humanoid robot market segment is seeing demand from enterprises gather speed, as prominent start-ups AgiBot and Unitree Robotics have landed orders totalling 124 million yuan (US$17.3 million) from state-owned China Mobile, the world’s largest telecommunications firm by number of subscribers. That order from China Mobile’s subsidiary in Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province, involves the supply of 78 million yuan worth of full-size humanoid robots from AgiBot and...
Sam Altman, founder and CEO of ChatGPT owner OpenAI, said the release of its open-source artificial intelligence (AI) model would be delayed indefinitely, highlighting the challenges that the start-up faces in keeping pace with the open-source movement spearheaded by Chinese firms like DeepSeek. While OpenAI’s closed-source AI models remain months ahead in their capabilities, Altman said on Saturday that its first open-source model may take more time to develop. “We need time to run additional...
China’s antitrust regulator on Monday approved American chip design software giant Synopsys’ US$35 billion acquisition of Ansys, weeks after the administration of US President Donald Trump lifted export controls on electronic design automation (EDA) products to the mainland. In a statement, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said it gave the green light to Synopsys’ deal for Ansys, a computer-aided engineering software vendor, under the condition that the two firms honour...
Global sovereign wealth funds are increasing their allocations to Chinese assets, betting on the country’s prowess in digital technologies, renewable energy and advanced manufacturing to drive returns and hedge geopolitical risks, according to an Invesco study. Nearly 60 per cent of sovereign wealth funds said they planned to increase their investments in China over the next five years, higher than in 2024, the study revealed on Monday. The Invesco Global Sovereign Asset Management study was...
Alibaba Group Holding tied its own record of 80 million on-demand deliveries on Saturday, the e-commerce giant reported on Monday, as it wages an all-out battle against rivals Meituan and JD.com in China’s quick-delivery market – with freebies and eye-popping discounts as the ammunition. Alibaba’s new instant commerce brand Taobao Shangou said its daily active users last week jumped 15 per cent from the previous week, which would put number at around 230 million, though the company did not...
Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) and BYD have signed initial agreements with Australian mining giant BHP to collaborate on battery technology and electrification of mining operations, as both mainland firms explore new growth avenues amid a weakening outlook for electric vehicles (EVs). Melbourne-based BHP said on Monday that it had signed memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with CATL, the world’s largest battery maker, and FinDreams Battery (FDB), a fully owned subsidiary of BYD, the...
Shanghai’s West Bund, an 11km-long waterfront area in mainland China’s financial capital, has bucked the property downtrend plaguing the sector, as companies and retail brands flock to office buildings and malls in the zone. The vibrant area, located on the west bank of the Huangpu River in the southwestern Xuhui district, is emerging as the latest central business district (CBD), with premium office buildings and retail space like Hongkong Land’s Westbund Central. The city kicked off the...
Ben Jiang / South China Morning Post: A look at Xiaomi AI Glasses, launched in China on June 26 with a starting price of ~$278, featuring a 12MP ultra-wide camera and powered by Qualcomm's AR1 chip — The Xiaomi AI glasses are handy for hands-free photography and videography, which is ideal for situations like cycling
Meituan, mainland China’s top on-demand delivery giant, said on Sunday that daily orders on its platform have surged to another all-time high – a sign that the company has managed to fend off competition from rivals like JD.com and Alibaba Group Holding. The Beijing-based company said daily transactions had reached 150 million, just days after surpassing 120 million last week. The firm’s record daily orders for both food and retail goods delivery comes at a time when major Chinese e-commerce...
Hong Kong will facilitate more use cases for stablecoins and other tokenised financial products, part of the city’s effort to build a trusted and sustainable digital-asset market that can tackle real-world economic problems, said the architect of the strategy. Eleven cryptocurrency exchanges have been licensed by the Securities and Futures Commission to operate in Hong Kong, a sea change over three short years after a raft of policies, regulations and guidelines were put in place to put the city...
Chinese tech giant Xiaomi’s entry into the country’s burgeoning artificial intelligence (AI) glasses market is likely to benefit from the gadget maker’s expansive ecosystem and supply chain strength, according to early adopters and analysts. Several users who bought the Xiaomi AI frames when they were released last month found the first-person video recording and AI features useful for documenting personal moments and assisting with office tasks, although there were improvements and missing...
The idea that Hong Kong could play a leading role in the global space economy was greeted with scepticism when I raised the possibility with Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu earlier this month. However, critics fail to realise that space technologies have permeated many aspects of our lives – from checking the weather and ordering our meals on our mobile phones to navigating our daily commutes and settling stock transactions in real time. A report published by the American consultancy firm...
As the dust barely settles on “Made in China 2025”, Beijing is intensifying its quest for technological supremacy with a focus on “future industries” amid its escalating rivalry with the United States. Authorities are pushing boundaries in their pursuit of a new growth model centred on technological breakthroughs and industrial upgrades. What are “future industries”? First introduced by President Xi Jinping in 2020, the term refers to sectors with foundational technologies still in their infancy...
Chinese start-up Moonshot AI has released a new open-source artificial intelligence (AI) model, called Kimi K2, that is touted to excel in frontier knowledge, maths, coding and general agentic tasks, as the company looks to maintain an edge against rivals such as DeepSeek. Beijing-based Moonshot said Kimi K2 was developed with a mixture-of-experts (MoE) architecture and boasts 1 trillion total parameters, with 32 billion so-called activated parameters – specialised computational units engaged...
Chinese manufacturers of power banks – the ubiquitous portable batteries used by travellers to charge smartphones, tablets and laptops – are under increased public scrutiny, following a spate of incidents in which defective units were found to have caught fire during commercial flights. That prompted the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) to impose an emergency ban on air passengers carrying substandard power banks, a safety precaution that went into effect on June 28. Portable...
The Shanghai branch of the regulator overseeing the assets of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) called on these organisations to explore the potential role of stablecoins and other digital assets in trade. The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) in Shanghai said SOEs must “maintain a keen awareness of emerging technologies” and strengthen research on digital currencies, according to the agency’s statement on Friday. The statement followed SASAC’s study session on...
Wuhan University has become the latest institution to join China’s push for self-reliance in semiconductors by establishing the School of Integrated Circuits, led by a scientist educated at Stanford University. Liu Sheng, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who earned a doctorate in mechanical engineering from Stanford in 1992, has been appointed as the inaugural dean of the new school. At an opening ceremony on Thursday, he said the school’s establishment followed “an in-depth...
Huawei Technologies rolled out the next phase of its global smartphone push on Thursday, with a launch event for the Pura 80 series in Dubai, as the Shenzhen-based tech giant seeks to revive its once-lucrative handset business amid US sanctions. Three models – the Pura 80, Pura 80 Pro and Pura 80 Ultra – were unveiled at a launch event in Dubai, as Huawei showcased its commitment to the market dominated by Apple and Samsung Electronics even though its devices are not supported by popular apps...
Hong Kong stocks advanced on Friday, with the city’s benchmark pulling off a weekly gain on expectations for improved earnings in some industries and additional policy support from Beijing to spur growth. The Hang Seng Index rose 0.5 per cent to 24,139.57 at the close and the Hang Seng Tech Index gained 0.6 per cent. On the mainland, the CSI 300 Index added 0.1 per cent and the Shanghai Composite Index was little changed. Wuxi AppTec jumped 10 per cent to HK$88.15 after saying its first-half...
Tencent Holdings-backed AgiBot plans to acquire a controlling stake in a Shanghai-listed company for roughly 2 billion yuan (US$279 million), sparking speculation that the humanoid robot maker could pursue a back-door listing less than three years after it was founded. Agibot, the start-up also known as Zhiyuan Robotics, has offered to buy at least 63.62 per cent of Swancor Advanced Materials through affiliates Shanghai Zhiyuan Hengyue Technology Partnership and Shanghai Zhiyuan Xinchuang...
Cloud infrastructure services spending in China reached US$11.6 billion in the first quarter, up 16 per cent from a year earlier, as adoption accelerated on the back of mainland enterprises’ growing artificial intelligence (AI) activities, according to research firm Canalys. Alibaba Group Holding’s cloud computing unit continued to lead the industry in the March quarter, with a commanding 33 per cent market share and a 15 per cent year-on-year revenue growth, Canalys data showed. Hangzhou-based...
Hong Kong start-up Syngular Technology has won a €100,000 (US$117,000) investment in the 2025 EQT Impact Challenge, after beating three other finalists in the pitch competition by impressing judges with its augmented-reality surgical system. By winning the challenge – designed to identify high-impact early-stage ventures in Hong Kong – the three-year-old company secured the investment from the EQT Foundation, founded by partners of the Swedish investment firm EQT. The competition, organised in...
China is set to showcase its artificial intelligence (AI) prowess, as well as its vision of how to manage the disruptive technology, at a conference in Shanghai as the country is stepping up its competition against the US for AI supremacy. The annual three-day World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), which starts on July 26, would showcase more than 3,000 hi-tech products, 40 large language models, 50 AI-powered devices and 60 intelligent robots, according to the organisers. Most of the...
Unitree Robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) firm DeepSeek hosted Zhang Yuzhuo, director of China’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), during his tour of the two privately-owned start-ups on Thursday. As part of his two-day visit to east Zhejiang province, where the two companies are based, Zhang aimed to learn from the two companies about “how enterprises effectively gather innovative resources and stimulate vitality in the field of AI”, according to an...
IntelliGen AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) start-up founded in Hong Kong, is positioning itself as a competitor to Google DeepMind in the field of drug discovery, as the city increasingly seeks to bolster its AI capabilities. In an interview with the Post, founder and president Ronald Sun expressed confidence that IntelliGen AI could soon compete globally with Isomorphic Labs, a spin-off of DeepMind, in leveraging AI for drug screening and design. “For generative science, new breakthroughs...
The European Union is facing growing calls to act against Beijing’s dominance over rare earth supply chains, highlighting persistent tensions just weeks before the coming EU-China summit. “Europe faces dual coercion: Trump’s tariffs and more threateningly, China’s strategic chokehold on rare earth exports,” said Bart Groothuis, MEP for Renew Europe, a centrist group in the European Parliament led by French President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party. “This is not collateral damage from the...
Sales of weight-loss drugs in the West have soared in recent years, driven by the approval of a new class of more effective medication, the rapid growth in obese populations owing to poor diet and lack of exercise, and endorsements by celebrities and social media influencers. In China, over 60 late-stage drugs are undergoing clinical trials. In the coming years, these may compete with the products of incumbents such as Denmark’s Novo Nordisk and US-based Eli Lilly, Boston-based global...
Hong Kong stocks rebounded on Thursday as investors awaited signals on additional policy support from Beijing as the end of the 90-day tariff ceasefire with the US neared and after China’s deflation deepened. The Hang Seng Index rose 0.6 per cent to 24,028.37 at the close and the Hang Seng Tech Index dropped 0.3 per cent. On the mainland, the CSI 300 Index and the Shanghai Composite Index both climbed 0.5 per cent. Sunny Optical Technology advanced 6.1 per cent to HK$75.45 and BYD Electronic...
CXMT, the parent of Chinese semiconductor firm ChangXin Memory Technologies, has initiated its initial public offering (IPO) process on the mainland, as it seeks funding to bolster growth amid an upswing in the global market for memory chips. CXMT has completed IPO counselling recordation – the formal filing of pre-listing guidance – with the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), according to a statement on the securities watchdog’s website on Monday. The step is a prerequisite for...
JD.com has pledged more than 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) under its ambitious “Double Hundred Plan” to support so-called benchmark brands across various categories, further heating up China’s on-demand delivery sector, as industry-wide daily orders reached a new high of more than 200 million. The Beijing-based e-commerce giant’s latest initiative seeks to elevate sales of select brands beyond one million items on its platform via measures that include increased traffic, marketing incentives...
Zeekr, a premium electric vehicle (EV) unit of Geely Auto, has jumped on the hybrid technology bandwagon to widen its customer base amid rising competition in the world’s largest automotive market. The Hangzhou-based company has become the latest mainland Chinese EV assembler to launch plug-in hybrids, leaving Shanghai-headquartered Nio as the only domestic company making pure EVs. US carmaker Tesla, which produces cars on the mainland, is another maker of pure EVs. “Nearly all Chinese carmakers...
The team behind Chinese general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) agent Manus has relocated its headquarters to Singapore, stoking speculation that the move was aimed at facilitating easier access to Nvidia chips amid US export controls to China. “This company right now is headquartered in Singapore,” Manus AI co-founder and chief product officer Zhang Tao revealed during a keynote session at the SuperAI conference in Singapore on June 18. He added that the firm also had offices in Tokyo and...
Humanoid robots are unlikely to deliver significant productivity gains or be disruptive to household routines within the next five years, due to major barriers in artificial intelligence (AI), data collection and inadequate regulatory frameworks, according to UBS. “The ‘EV moment’ [for humanoid robotics] may not happen within five years,” Phyllis Wang, China industrials analyst at UBS Securities, said at a briefing on Monday. Wang defined an “EV moment” as the pivotal breakthrough when...
Hong Kong stocks fell by the most in nearly three weeks as China’s deflationary trend became more entrenched, deepening concerns about the nation’s growth prospects. At the close on Wednesday, the Hang Seng Index dropped 1.1 per cent to 23,892.32, its most substantial loss since June 19, while the Hang Seng Tech Index retreated 1.8 per cent. On the mainland, the CSI 300 Index slipped 0.2 per cent and the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.1 per cent. Henderson Land Development slumped 8.6 per cent...
Hong Kong’s stock exchange had its busiest day of the year for new listings on Wednesday as five mainland Chinese companies made their trading debuts, cementing the city’s top global ranking for initial public offerings (IPOs). Semiconductor chip designer Fortior Technology was the biggest winner after its shares surged 16 per cent to HK$139.80. The Shanghai-listed company raised HK$2.26 billion (US$287.8 million) from its offering of new shares at HK$120.50 each. Apple supplier Lens Technology...
China has ramped up offshore wind energy development, as the form of renewable energy aligns with Beijing’s goals of carbon neutrality, energy security and developing the marine economy to boost economic growth. China added more than 4.4 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind capacity in the first six months of the year, the same amount it added in all of 2024, according to a report by the non-profit Global Energy Monitor (GEM) on Wednesday. The report said the country was expected to add at least 9GW...
Digital colleagues will be a part of everyday life in the next five years, according to an artificial intelligence (AI) expert from Alibaba Group Holding’s cloud computing unit, who envisions an ecosystem of application developers creating AI agents to cater to consumer and business demands. “Agentic AI is very popular in the industry right now,” said Huang Fei, vice-president of Alibaba Cloud and head of the company’s Tongyi Natural Language Processing Lab. Speaking at the China Conference 2025...
Hong Kong’s status as an international financial centre gives it an edge in artificial intelligence (AI) development in spite of rising geopolitical tensions, according to experts, as the city boosts computing power resources to support companies involved in the vital technology. “For AI companies, having easy access to capital is extremely important,” SenseTime chief financial officer Wang Zheng said in a panel discussion at the South China Morning Post’s China Conference 2025 on Tuesday. “Hong...