Advertisement
Advertisement
-
Tech /

Tech Trends

Related Topics:
Artificial intelligence
Self-driving cars and autonomous vehicles
China digital currency
Alibaba
Tencent Holdings
Pinduoduo
Xiaomi
Baidu
JD.com
Kuaishou
Qwen 3.5 has performed on par with leading systems from US heavyweights OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind. Photo: Shutterstock
Artificial intelligence

Global AI race heats up as Chinese tech giant releases new model

With multimodal capabilities and open weights, Qwen-3.5 signals Alibaba’s ambition to anchor the next phase of global AI deployment.

Artificial intelligence

ByteDance ‘strengthening safeguards’ after Seedance AI video controversy

5
Fame and celebrity

Hollywood shaken by Brad Pitt-Tom Cruise fight video made with Chinese AI

6
Semiconductors

Hua Hong reports record Q4 revenue as AI-driven memory crunch fuels price hikes

Revenue growth primarily driven by increases in wafer shipments and improved average selling prices, company says.

A view of Hua Hong’s headquarters in Shanghai. Photo: Handout
A view of Hua Hong’s headquarters in Shanghai. Photo: Handout
Artificial intelligence

China’s MiniMax releases AI model ‘designed for real-world productivity’

Company says it is ‘first frontier model … delivering on the promise of intelligence too cheap to meter’.

Cryptocurrency

Policy to products: Web3 innovation takes centre stage at Consensus Hong Kong

SFC CEO Julia Leung Fung-yee announced that the regulator will greenlight virtual asset margin financing for clients with strong credit profiles.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Artificial intelligence

China’s Lenovo warns of ‘prolonged’ memory crunch, looks to AI for rebound

Top PC maker posts a 21 per cent profit drop amid chip squeeze, but bets on AI-powered devices to sustain growth amid industry upheaval.

Lenovo led the global PC market with a 26 per cent share in the fourth quarter after shipping 19.3 million units. Photo: Reuters
Lenovo led the global PC market with a 26 per cent share in the fourth quarter after shipping 19.3 million units. Photo: Reuters
Artificial intelligence

Alibaba’s Qwen tops 120 million orders in 6 days amid China’s AI shopping battle

Campaign has sparked a behavioural shift towards AI-powered shopping, which Alibaba says is becoming a more popular lifestyle choice.

Mainland China

Baidu unveils AI-driven Wikipedia challenger in bid for global users

BaiduWiki, a version of the firm’s Baidu Baike online encyclopaedia, is available in English, Spanish, French, Russian and Japanese.

Artificial intelligence

DeepSeek boosts AI model with 10-fold token addition as Zhipu AI unveils GLM-5

The upgrade will allow DeepSeek’s AI model to remember and process more information in a single conversation or task.

videocam
DeepSeek’s update pushed its model’s knowledge cut-off from July 2024 to May 2025, adding nearly a year of new information to the system. Photo: dpa
Artificial intelligence

Alibaba unveils RynnBrain, an embodied AI model that gives robots a ‘brain’

The model, which was unveiled by Alibaba’s Damo Academy, matched leading embodied models from Google and Nvidia.

Alibaba and its fintech affiliate Ant Group are launching their own robotics models in a bid to dominate the next frontier of technology. Photo: AP
Alibaba and its fintech affiliate Ant Group are launching their own robotics models in a bid to dominate the next frontier of technology. Photo: AP
Cryptocurrency

Consensus 2026 kicks off in Hong Kong amid tighter Beijing oversight

Organised by CoinDesk, the event is an important gathering for digital finance and cryptocurrency professionals.

Artificial intelligence

Indonesia telco chief warns of digital colonisation, backs China open-source AI

Indonesian executives stress that localisation and sovereignty are key to AI adoption in the fast-growing Southeast Asian market.

Artificial intelligence

China’s ByteDance, Alibaba unveil AI image tools to rival Google’s popular Nano Banana

The tech giants’ new image models lower the barrier for individual users or businesses to produce professional-looking images.

ByteDance says its new model’s stronger reasoning ability enables it to better understand and follow human text prompts to generate the desired images. Photo: Handout
China’s private sector

Before the factory floor, the dance floor: robots find path to market at US$145

Humanoid robots may one day transform factories and warehouses, but for now their most immediate role is keeping the party going.

videocam
What the butler saw ... costumed robots perform a skit. Photo: Handout
What the butler saw ... costumed robots perform a skit. Photo: Handout
Robotics

Chinese vacuum maker using Temu’s playbook dreams big with Super Bowl debut

Dreame showcases robot vacuum in a Super Bowl commercial, drawing on Temu’s US prime-time campaign that helped it challenge Amazon.com.

Electric & new energy vehicles

Pony AI and Toyota roll out robotaxis in China’s autonomous drive push

Guangzhou-based Pony AI begins output of 1,000 autonomous cabs and targets a 3,000-unit fleet by the end of 2026 as it expands globally.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Artificial intelligence

ByteDance’s new model sparks stock rally as China’s AI video battle escalates

Seedance 2.0 thrills early adopters with cinematic realism and fuels debate over AI’s role in filmmaking and content creation.

A Seedance 2.0 video capture. Seedance 2.0 delivers enhanced lifelike generations that blur the boundary between AI content and reality, according to early adopters. Photo: Handout
A Seedance 2.0 video capture. Seedance 2.0 delivers enhanced lifelike generations that blur the boundary between AI content and reality, according to early adopters. Photo: Handout
Mergers & Acquisitions

M&A market ‘firing on all cylinders’, headed for record year: Citigroup

Confident companies and investors, solid economic growth, low inflation and ample capital drive outlook, bank’s global M&A co-head says.

Electric & new energy vehicles

AutoFlight unveils world’s largest flying car as China races to lead the skies

CATL-backed AutoFlight debuts Matrix, targeting global expansion, as Beijing moves to set standards for domestic eVTOL makers and operators.

6
Artificial intelligence

US software rout spills over to China’s SaaS sector

The software sector in China has long been constrained by slower cloud adoption and a weaker appetite for recurring subscription fees.

AI letters and a robot hand are seen on computer motherboard in this illustration created on June 23, 2023. Photo: Reuters
Electric & new energy vehicles

Tesla launches China AI training centre as self-driving race accelerates

US EV giant opens hub to advance its Full Self-Driving software, as Chinese carmakers step up their own L3 autonomous driving plans.

The AI training centre’s launch marks a significant step towards commercialising Tesla’s Full Self-Driving navigation software in mainland China. Photo: Reuters
The AI training centre’s launch marks a significant step towards commercialising Tesla’s Full Self-Driving navigation software in mainland China. Photo: Reuters
Artificial intelligence

Sweet surge: Qwen overtakes Yuanbao after Alibaba’s bubble tea campaign

More than 10 million free orders put Alibaba’s AI app in the spotlight amid a high-stakes battle for Spring Festival attention.

Made in China 2025

Fosun Pharma unit licenses lung cancer drug to Eisai in US$1.55 billion deal

The deal comes as Chinese novel drug makers are having more say in how their new medicines are developed with global partners.

Robotics

China’s humanoid makers pivot from ‘body’ to ‘brain’ as commercial race heats up

Dobot claims its self-developed vision-language-action model lets humanoid robots react to the real world rather than just perform preprogrammed tasks.

The Atom humanoid robot developed by Shenzhen-based Dobot. Photo: Handout
Help preserve 120 years of quality journalism.
SUPPORT NOW