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Chinese smartphone maker Honor has unveiled a “robot phone” and its first humanoid assistant ahead of MWC Barcelona, alongside its latest foldable handset, in an aggressive bet on artificial intelligence-powered hardware to stand out in the fierce Android competition. Honor's AI Robot Phone, which featured a motorised, three-axis gimbal arm, could track motion and interact with users through camera movement, the company said in a preview of the handset on Sunday in Barcelona. The camera arm and......

A subsidiary of state-owned conglomerate China Resources (Holdings) has acquired a Hong Kong hotel and plans to convert it into student housing amid a wave of investments driven by rising demand after the city raised the cap on non-local students. CR Longdation signed an agreement to buy four-star hotel Hotel Cozi Oasis in Kwai Chung, a major industrial and residential area in the southwestern New Territories, for HK$953 million (US$122 million), said Colliers and Knight Frank, which advised on......

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has stepped up its overseas expansion with the global launch of its flagship Xiaomi 17 series in Barcelona, in its latest effort to challenge Apple and Samsung in the premium segment. The launch event, held on Saturday ahead of MWC Barcelona, marked the overseas release of Xiaomi 17 and Xiaomi 17 Ultra, months after the company launched the Xiaomi 17 series domestically. As with the domestic versions, both models are powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8......

China's major sportswear makers have shrugged off soft consumer spending and a warm winter, according to analysts. Retail sales in China's sportswear sector picked up in the first two months of 2026 and beat expectations, helped by fresh policy support and Chinese New Year demand, analysts said. Separately, Chinese households also tuned into the Winter Olympics, where domestic sportswear giants Li Ning and Anta had high visibility. “We are turning more positive on the China sportswear industry......

Chinese smartphone makers are set to introduce their latest handsets at MWC Barcelona, as the mobile industry navigates an ongoing memory crunch and a pivot to artificial intelligence. Some Android phone makers are also expected to showcase experimental robots and other AI devices at the annual trade show formerly known as Mobile World Congress, which will run from March 2 to 5. Honor, an independent brand formerly under Huawei Technologies, will unveil more details about its highly anticipated......

In January, Hong Kong's financial regulator warned the public about an unlicensed “AI-based quantum high-frequency trading” scheme. While this was a case of old-school fraud dressed in new-tech clothing, it highlighted a deeper truth: where sophisticated technology meets finance, the potential for both innovation and harm grows exponentially. The real challenge is not these crude scams, but the legitimate, powerful AI agents now arriving in the marketplace. When this digital delegate makes a......

The top executive of Wuliangye Yibin – China's second-largest liquor producer – has come under investigation for suspected corruption. Zeng Congqin, 57, chairman and party secretary of the state-owned liquor giant, is suspected of serious violations of party discipline and law – a typical reference to corruption – the provincial anti-corruption body, Sichuan Discipline Inspection Commission, announced on Saturday night. Zeng is being investigated by authorities in Yibin, a major city in the......

Hong Kong-listed mainland Chinese pharmaceutical companies are on track to deliver full-year profits, as surging drug sales and lucrative out-licensing deals with global partners start to pay off after years of research and development outlay. “Despite domestic challenges, particularly drug pricing pressure, the earnings performance of innovative drugs should still fare well in China in 2025,” said Tony Ren, head of Asia Healthcare Research at Macquarie Capital. Innovent Biologics, the first......

Hong Kong's struggling office landlords are ramping up efforts to convert their assets into co-working spaces and student accommodation in a bid to adapt to intense competition and the flight to quality, according to analysts. With some 3.5 million sq ft of new premium office space expected to be completed this year and next, on top of the 4.5 million sq ft added in 2024 and 2025, tenants are increasingly choosing to relocate to new and modern offices, leading to diverging fortunes for big......

On a day typically considered one of the happiest on the calendar for Chinese workers – the eve of Chinese New Year, when families gather for dinner in the midst of an extended public holiday – the annual Spring Festival Gala, the world's most-watched television programme, left some in the viewing audience with a sense of profound disillusionment. As a troupe of humanoid robots break-danced, flipped, swung swords and performed comedy sketches at the gala, domestic AI brands occupied the show's......

Alibaba Group Holding plans to launch new smart glasses powered by its artificial intelligence assistant Qwen at the coming MWC Barcelona trade show. On Saturday, a company representative confirmed the launch, adding that both online and offline presales would start on Monday, the first day of the annual trade show, formerly known as Mobile World Congress. Meanwhile, the company, which owns the South China Morning Post, is preparing a diverse product line-up this year for the global market,......

WeRide, one of China's big three robotaxi companies, has cut research and development (R&D) costs by “millions” of US dollars by using artificial intelligence to train its fleet in virtual worlds, its CEO said. While rivals had also developed AI models simulating the physical world, WeRide's efforts stood out as it was using its world model Genesis to support its global expansion strategy, said Tony Han. “It's the first real marriage between physical AI and generative AI,” Han told the South......

Until last year, Fidelity International's most significant cornerstone commitments on the Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) market dated back to 2021, when Chinese short-video platform Kuaishou Technology raised US$5.4 billion and healthcare firm Medlive Technology completed a US$543.4 million listing. Then for the next four years, the asset manager went quiet. Late last year it returned to Chinese assets in force. It backed gold miner Zijin Gold International's US$3.2 billion listing in......

Chinese chip designers from Cambricon Technologies and Moore Threads Technology to MetaX Integrated Circuits posted stellar earnings on Friday, driven by growing demand for domestic semiconductors amid Beijing's tech-sufficiency push. Beijing-based Cambricon, seen as a local alternative to US chip giant Nvidia, reported a net profit of 2.06 billion yuan (US$301 million) for 2025, its first full-year profit since listing in 2020, according to a filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Revenue for......

A US trade panel investigating a patent dispute between GoPro and Chinese rival Insta360 found a violation involving design applied to outdated cameras of the Chinese firm, effectively allowing it to remain in the US market without any restrictions. The case centred on six patents held by GoPro. The US International Trade Commission (ITC) on Thursday determined violation of one patent relating to camera design, and issued orders “prohibiting the unlicensed importation by Insta360 of certain......

Major Hong Kong developer Sino Land posted a steady net profit for the six months ended December, propped up by early gains from a recovery in the city's residential property market. Sino Land reported a net profit of HK$2.22 billion (US$284 million) in the first half of its current financial year – excluding revaluation losses on investment properties – that was slightly down from HK$2.24 billion a year earlier, according to its Hong Kong stock exchange filing on Friday. The company's revenue......

New World Development (NWD) posted a net loss of HK$3.73 billion (US$477 million) for the first half of fiscal 2026, as the developer prioritised deleveraging despite a pickup in Hong Kong home sales. The company said the loss narrowed 44 per cent year on year for the six months ended December 31, as one-off losses on investment properties eased and financing costs and tax expenses related to mainland projects declined, according to a Hong Kong stock exchange filing on Friday. Dividend payments......

Semiconductor designer Moore Threads Technology has achieved full-stack compatibility between its flagship MTT S5000 graphics processing unit (GPU) and Alibaba Cloud's Qwen3.5-series artificial intelligence models, as China's tech self-reliance efforts gather pace. Beijing-based Moore Threads, founded by former Nvidia executive James Zhang Jianzhong, on Thursday said the firm's flagship AI chip was now compatible with the three new models under the latest Qwen series – Qwen3.5-35B-A3B,......

At Pop Mart's shop in Hong Kong's bustling Causeway Bay shopping district, a display of the toymaker's newly launched character, Merodi, drew little attention on Friday morning. “A few people are buying it,” a salesperson said. “It's not very well known yet.” The new series, Merodi After School, features a mischievous little girl with the magical ability to talk to animals. It was created by Taiwanese artist Will Chen Wei-hua. The launch came two months after Pop Mart's previous debut,......

Edwin Leong Siu-hung, chairman of Tai Hung Fai Enterprise Group and long dubbed Hong Kong's “king of shops”, has sold a flat in the ultra-exclusive Mount Nicholson enclave on The Peak, saying weak rental returns did not make it worthwhile to hold the property any longer. Land Registry records showed Leong sold the 4,566 sq ft four-bedroom flat for HK$323 million (US$41.3 million), or about HK$70,740 per square foot. He bought the property in 2016 for about HK$312 million. While the selling price......