https://www.scmp.com/rss/521312/feed Sam received his bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Montana. He is interested in human interest stories and feature writing. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Sam Phillips Sam Phillips Artificial intelligence company OpenAI is expected to release its much-anticipated GPT-5 model this week, just days after the tech unicorn launched two new open-weight reasoning models. San Francisco-based OpenAI hinted as much in an all-caps post on X that read: “LIVE5TREAM THURSDAY 10 AM PT.” While there appeared to be a typo in the first word of that announcement, many of those who posted comments got the hint that the misplaced “5” could be about GPT-5. In a subsequent post on his personal X... https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3321083/openai-poised-release-gpt-5-model-days-after-launching-2-new-open-systems?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3321083/openai-poised-release-gpt-5-model-days-after-launching-2-new-open-systems?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 07 Aug 2025 10:00:21 +0000 Nora Mankel,Sam Phillips Nora Mankel,Sam Phillips Over the past decade, clean-up efforts in East Asia have reduced air pollution significantly, improving quality of life and health in the region. But they may also have inadvertently contributed to speeding up global warming, by removing particles that helped to cool the Earth. Pollutants are made up of aerosols, liquid and solid particles suspended in the air. Although their removal is good for public health, this can lead to less cloud and less ground protection from the sun, and may have... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3320546/new-climate-study-revisits-tie-between-air-pollution-east-asia-and-global-warming?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3320546/new-climate-study-revisits-tie-between-air-pollution-east-asia-and-global-warming?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 03 Aug 2025 06:00:13 +0000 Coco Feng,Sam Phillips Coco Feng,Sam Phillips Apple is closing a retail store in Dalian, marking the US firm’s first shutdown of a directly managed outlet on the mainland amid struggling iPhone sales. Meanwhile, Huawei Technologies returned to the top of China’s smartphone market in the second quarter. The store, located in the northeastern city’s landmark Parkland shopping centre, will cease operations on August 9, according to Apple’s website, leaving the city of 7.5 million residents with just one remaining Apple-owned outlet. The... https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3319861/apple-shuts-dalian-store-huawei-tops-mainland-chinas-smartphone-market?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3319861/apple-shuts-dalian-store-huawei-tops-mainland-chinas-smartphone-market?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 28 Jul 2025 12:00:09 +0000 Sam Phillips Sam Phillips 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 in years may take more time to develop. “We need time to run... https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3318138/openai-delays-its-first-open-source-ai-model-challenging-deepseek?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3318138/openai-delays-its-first-open-source-ai-model-challenging-deepseek?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 14 Jul 2025 10:00:18 +0000 Enoch Yiu,Sam Phillips Enoch Yiu,Sam Phillips Hong Kong’s insurance business may expand by a compounded 55 per cent over the next eight years, driven by the so-called silver economy serving senior citizens and growth in the Greater Bay Area, industry experts said on Tuesday. Gross insurance premium in the city may jump to US$127 billion by 2032 from last year’s US$82 billion, said Steve Finch, Manulife Financial’s Asia president, citing industry forecasts. That growth is enabled by the “depth and sophistication of Hong Kong’s insurance... https://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/3317416/hong-kong-insurance-market-may-grow-55-2032-greater-bay-area-ages?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/3317416/hong-kong-insurance-market-may-grow-55-2032-greater-bay-area-ages?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 08 Jul 2025 10:59:36 +0000 Karen Chiu,Hannah Wang,Sam Phillips Karen Chiu,Hannah Wang,Sam Phillips Climate change could disrupt a third of the world’s semiconductor supply by 2035, as severe drought threatens the mining of copper – a critical material used in chip production – according to a new report from PwC released on Tuesday. The extraction of copper, essential for building the microscopic wires found on semiconductor circuits, requires substantial water resources. About 1,600 litres (423 gallons) of water were needed to obtain just 19kg of copper, the report said, citing data from the... https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3317237/third-global-chip-supply-threatened-climate-change-and-drought-2035-pwc?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3317237/third-global-chip-supply-threatened-climate-change-and-drought-2035-pwc?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 08 Jul 2025 06:00:14 +0000 Sam Phillips Sam Phillips Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing services and artificial intelligence (AI) arm of Alibaba Group Holding, unveiled plans to launch new data centres in Malaysia and the Philippines, as it expands infrastructure investments to meet the growing demand for AI in the region. In a statement on Tuesday marking a decade of operations in Singapore, Alibaba Cloud said it had launched its third data centre in Malaysia, and planned to open a second one in the Philippines in October this year. The latest... https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3316610/alibaba-cloud-expands-ai-footprint-asia-new-data-centres-malaysia-philippines?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3316610/alibaba-cloud-expands-ai-footprint-asia-new-data-centres-malaysia-philippines?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 02 Jul 2025 06:16:33 +0000 Sam Phillips Sam Phillips The expertise of Chinese researchers in artificial intelligence (AI) is in the spotlight, as US tech giant Meta Platforms has recruited four leading scientists from OpenAI to enhance its competitive edge in the global AI race. Meta’s hiring of Zhao Shengjia, Ren Hongyu, Yu Jiahui and Bi Shuchao, reported by US tech news outlet The Information, was partially confirmed by Alexandr Wang, head of Meta’s AI unit and former CEO of Scale AI, in a social media post over the weekend. Wang expressed... https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3316350/top-openai-talent-china-joins-meta-zuckerberg-bolsters-ai-team-tech-battle?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3316350/top-openai-talent-china-joins-meta-zuckerberg-bolsters-ai-team-tech-battle?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 30 Jun 2025 10:00:15 +0000 Sam Phillips Sam Phillips With the roll-out of Tesla’s new Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, here is how Elon Musk’s offering compares to the Apollo Go driverless taxi service by Chinese tech giant Baidu: When: Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the launch of the autonomous vehicle service on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday, calling it the “culmination of a decade of hard work”. Baidu first tested its Apollo Go autonomous vehicle in September 2019, with official commercial service beginning in 2022. Where: Tesla’s Robotaxi... https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3315503/how-teslas-robotaxi-service-compares-baidus-apollo-go-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3315503/how-teslas-robotaxi-service-compares-baidus-apollo-go-china?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 23 Jun 2025 12:00:13 +0000 Sam Phillips,Cheryl Arcibal Sam Phillips,Cheryl Arcibal Global investors, including those based in Hong Kong, are channelling their funds into Japan’s residential property market as returns from assets in mainland China sag in the midst of a four-year slump, according to market consultants. They ploughed in US$11.2 billion of capital into Japanese real estate in the first quarter, or 6 per cent above the five-year average, according to data compiled by Colliers, making it the fourth-largest recipient globally. Investors from the US, Singapore and... https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3315250/chinas-property-slump-drives-hong-kong-investors-japan-aided-yen-weakness?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3315250/chinas-property-slump-drives-hong-kong-investors-japan-aided-yen-weakness?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 22 Jun 2025 01:30:16 +0000 Sam Phillips Sam Phillips The latest model update from Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek has matched the coding performance of industry heavyweights Google and Anthropic, according to the latest results from WebDev Arena, a real-time AI coding competition. The updated version of DeepSeek-R1 tied for first place with Google’s Gemini-2.5 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 on the WebDev Arena leaderboard, which evaluates large language models (LLMs) on their ability to solve coding tasks quickly and... https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3314935/deepseeks-updated-r1-ai-model-equals-coding-ability-google-anthropic-new-benchmark?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3314935/deepseeks-updated-r1-ai-model-equals-coding-ability-google-anthropic-new-benchmark?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 18 Jun 2025 10:00:16 +0000 Sam Phillips Sam Phillips Alibaba Group Holding has made its Qwen3 Embedding series available for developers, in the Chinese tech giant’s latest bid to solidify its global leadership in open-source artificial intelligence (AI) models. Released late on Thursday, the series marks another addition to the company’s line-up of large language models (LLMs), which are among the world’s most popular open-source AI systems, according to New York-based computer app company Hugging Face. Alibaba, owner of the South China Morning... https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3313323/alibaba-unveils-new-open-source-ai-embedding-models-field-it-leads-globally?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3313323/alibaba-unveils-new-open-source-ai-embedding-models-field-it-leads-globally?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 06 Jun 2025 07:00:08 +0000 Sam Phillips,Xinmei Shen Sam Phillips,Xinmei Shen Hong Kong’s new stablecoin ordinance, which requires issuers of assets backed by fiat currency to be licensed, is set to take effect on August 1, according to a government announcement on Friday. The city’s Legislative Council passed the bill regulating stablecoins – a type of cryptocurrency backed by a reference asset, usually fiat currencies such as the US and Hong Kong dollars – on May 21, but the government had not previously announced when it would take effect. The law requires a licence... https://www.scmp.com/tech/blockchain/article/3313316/hong-kongs-stablecoin-law-take-effect-august-building-virtual-asset-licensing?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/blockchain/article/3313316/hong-kongs-stablecoin-law-take-effect-august-building-virtual-asset-licensing?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 06 Jun 2025 05:41:34 +0000 Sam Phillips Sam Phillips Syfe, a Singapore-based digital investment platform operator, has raised US$80 million in its Series C funding round, as the company pushes to expand its wealth management product offerings in Hong Kong. This round includes new all-equity financing worth US$53 million at a significantly higher valuation, according to the fintech start-up’s statement on Thursday. The latest financing brings the company’s total funding to US$132 million since it was founded in 2019. Syfe founder and CEO Dhruv... https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3313237/robo-financial-adviser-syfe-sinks-teeth-deeper-hong-kong-after-us80-million-funding?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3313237/robo-financial-adviser-syfe-sinks-teeth-deeper-hong-kong-after-us80-million-funding?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 05 Jun 2025 13:47:52 +0000 Sam Phillips Sam Phillips Indonesia should consider embracing electric vehicles (EVs) as an alternative to its plan to construct a costly methanol production facility, after a failed similar venture in China, according to energy finance specialists. The ageing vehicle fleet in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy may not be suitable for methanol fuel blends as the country’s humid climate can cause fuel condensation, the Ohio-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said in a report on Wednesday. While a... https://www.scmp.com/business/china-evs/article/3313056/indonesia-should-adopt-evs-draw-lessons-failed-methanol-project-china-experts-say?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/business/china-evs/article/3313056/indonesia-should-adopt-evs-draw-lessons-failed-methanol-project-china-experts-say?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 04 Jun 2025 10:05:13 +0000 Sam Phillips Sam Phillips Ant International, a spin-off from Ant Group, has launched an agentic artificial intelligence (AI) tool called the Alipay+ GenAI Cockpit, to deliver more efficient payments and compliance capabilities in the financial services industry. The Singapore-based company said the tool, described as an AI-as-a-Service (AIaaS) platform, enables fintech companies to build agentic AI systems as well as “AI-native financial services” for facilitating payments and compliance checks. Ant Group is the fintech... https://www.scmp.com/news/article/3313027/ant-international-rolls-out-agentic-ai-platform-pursuit-holy-grail-fintech?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/article/3313027/ant-international-rolls-out-agentic-ai-platform-pursuit-holy-grail-fintech?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 04 Jun 2025 09:00:17 +0000 Sam Phillips Sam Phillips Huawei Technologies plans to release the latest update to its premium Pura smartphone series next week, as speculation grows that the new devices would feature an upgraded in-house-designed chipset. The Pura 80 series would be available in China from June 11, Huawei said via its official Weibo account on Tuesday. The devices will retain the triangular-shaped camera bump seen in previous models, according to a teaser image, but are expected to feature notable upgrades in cameras, sensors and lens... https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3312889/huawei-launch-premium-pura-80-smartphone-series-june-11-featuring-harmonyos-next?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3312889/huawei-launch-premium-pura-80-smartphone-series-june-11-featuring-harmonyos-next?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 03 Jun 2025 10:00:25 +0000