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New World Development (NWD), the embattled Hong Kong property developer, said late on Thursday that its parent, Chow Tai Fook Enterprises (CTFE), has been approached by potential investors after reports that CTFE may sell part of its stake to Blackstone. Bloomberg reported early that Blackstone – the world's biggest asset manager – was in discussion to become the single largest shareholder of NWD, citing people familiar with the matter. Under the proposed arrangement, the US alternative asset......

Morgan Stanley expects China's humanoid robot sales to grow 133 per cent to 28,000 units this year, while noting that falling production costs will gradually make owning robots more accessible. The US investment bank revised its forecast from the 14,000 units previously on the back of the rapid growth of the industry in the world's second largest economy. The cost of materials to produce robots in China, home to most of the industry's supply chain, was set to drop 16 per cent this year, the bank......

British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca said on Thursday it plans to invest US$15 billion in China through 2030, signalling renewed momentum in UK-China commercial ties. The investment – the biggest deal announced so far during UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer's trip to Beijing aimed at strengthening trade ties – will support expanded medicines manufacturing as well as research and development (R&D), the company said in a statement. “Unlocking opportunities for British businesses across......

China's artificial intelligence hyperscalers have quickly added cloud support for Moltbot, formerly known as Clawdbot, an open-source AI agent that has exploded in popularity globally. Billed as the “AI that actually does things”, Moltbot's ability to autonomously execute tasks without the user directing each action has caused waves in the global developer community, briefly lifting shares of US web infrastructure giant Cloudflare in pre-market trading on Tuesday before they later......

Chinese liquor stocks jumped on Thursday ahead of Lunar New Year, with retailers reportedly building inventories of spirits typically consumed at family reunions and corporate banquets. Shares of Kweichow Moutai – China's best-known baijiu maker and the most valuable stock on the mainland market – climbed more than 9 per cent in afternoon trading to 1,445 yuan, their highest level in over a month. The stock closed the session 8.6 per cent higher at 1,437.72 yuan. Smaller peers also rallied, with......

With economic and geopolitical instability showing little sign of retreat in 2026, momentum from last year's strong gold demand was likely to persist this year, the London-based World Gold Council (WGC) said on Thursday. Gold investment demand across sectors was expected to remain firm, underpinned by anticipated US Federal Reserve rate cuts, the prospect of a weaker US dollar and the reduced appeal of bonds as risk premiums rise, the WGC said in its outlook. “The continued rally in spot gold......

Alibaba Group Holding's semiconductor design arm, T-Head, on Thursday unveiled details of its advanced artificial intelligence chip with capabilities said to be on par with Nvidia's H20, days after the unit was reportedly being prepared for a potential spin-off and public listing. According to information on T-Head's website, the Zhenwu 810E was a “fully self-developed” parallel processing unit (PPU), an application-specific integrated circuit designed for both AI training and inference. Alibaba......

Hong Kong's financial war chest increased its earnings by 51 per cent to a record last year, fuelled by a rally in local and global stocks as well as bonds. The Exchange Fund's investment income surged to HK$331 billion (US$42 billion), the most since its creation in 1993, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) said on Wednesday. Hong Kong's de facto central bank uses the fund's holdings to help defend the city's currency peg to the US dollar. All of the fund's main investment categories were......

The Taiwan government has cleared Nvidia to establish a NT$3.3 billion (US$105 million) headquarters on the island that produces most of the world's advanced semiconductors, which the Silicon Valley chip designer will need to feed the red-hot global artificial intelligence sector. Nvidia would use the Taipei site for a “commercial office” building and the acquisition of land for a “comprehensive business park”, the island's Ministry of Economic Affairs announced on Wednesday. The approval came a......

Gold's blistering rally to start 2026 – surging past US$5,500 an ounce – has already eclipsed many full-year price targets, forcing analysts to upgrade their outlooks. And for some, the US$6,000 threshold is now in view. The buying spree has prompted some Chinese funds to suspend new purchases, with one warning investors of “the risk of trading at a premium in the secondary market”. As of midday Thursday, spot gold stood at about US$5,540 per ounce, easing from an earlier high of US$5,598......

The sudden demise of a major gold trading platform has rocked the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, leaving tens of thousands of retail investors with combined losses totalling more than 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion), according to investors and domestic media reports. Chinese retail investors have rushed to capitalise on the unprecedented rally in global gold prices in recent months, leading many to put their funds into the online metals trading platform JWR. But as the gold spot price......

The financial head of Dutch chipmaking equipment giant ASML – following a year of double-digit sales growth for the company's machines – said he expects the firm's already declining sales to China to fall even further, as trade restrictions prevent shipments of the firm's most advanced units to Chinese clients and demand for other models is likely to taper off after an earlier rush. China's share of ASML's global sales dropped by 8 percentage points in 2025, falling to 33 per cent from the 41......

Hong Kong's new share market continues to sizzle, with three companies seeking to raise a combined US$2 billion on Thursday, led by Chinese pig-breeding giant Muyuan Foods, which launched the city's largest flotation of the year. The world's largest hog firm planned to raise HK$10.7 billion (US$1.4 billion) by selling about 274 million new shares at up to HK$39 each, according to its prospectus, hot on the heels of another billion-dollar deal from Chinese drinks giant Eastroc Beverage. At the......

Tesla confirmed that its annual revenues fell for the first time in the company's history last year, as the firm announced plans to pivot towards humanoid robots and possibly build its own semiconductor factories during an earnings call on Wednesday. The US-based company reported total revenues of US$94.8 billion for 2025, down by 3 per cent compared with the previous year. But revenues and gross profits beat analysts' estimates in the final quarter of last year, coming in at US$24.9 billion and......

Hong Kong stocks retreated on Thursday as investors resorted to profit taking after a recent surge. Meanwhile, earnings from some US tech heavyweights fell short of expectations, reigniting doubts over the sustainability of artificial intelligence development. The Hang Seng Index fell 0.7 per cent to 27,627.11 at the open, after gaining 2.6 per cent to hit a 4.5-year high on Wednesday. The Hang Seng Tech Index dropped 0.8 per cent. On the mainland, the CSI 300 Index rose 0.1 per cent and the......

Turning something you love into a thriving business is the dream of many people. And it is even more special when that passion passes down from one generation to the next. Beijing native Chen Lizhong is one of the lucky people who has had the chance to accomplish both. She is the founder and owner of Tiansai Vineyards, a boutique winery located in Bayingolin Mongol autonomous prefecture, also known as Bazhou, in China's far-west Xinjiang region. “Owning a winery had been my dream for years......

Hong Kong's de facto central bank left its base rate unchanged after a similar move overnight by the US Federal Reserve, leaving borrowers in the city with a longer wait for funding costs to fall. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced its decision on Thursday morning to keep the city's base rate at 4 per cent. Hours earlier, the Fed also kept its target rate in the range of 3.5 per cent to 3.75 per cent, after the first meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) this......

The S&P 500 breached the 7,000-point mark for the first time on Wednesday, driven by unrelenting optimism over artificial ‌intelligence and expectations of strong Big Tech earnings as well as monetary ‍policy easing. The benchmark index's ascent between successive 1,000-point additions has quickened in recent years, reflecting mounting investor confidence in the US economy and corporate America. It took about three years for the S&P 500 ⁠to rise to 5,000 points from 4,000, but only about nine......

Chips from Chinese semiconductor designer Hygon Information Technology were found unaffected by a recently disclosed vulnerability in products developed by its US tech licenser and former joint venture partner Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), according to analysts, which showed progress in China's self-reliance drive. Hygon's central processing units (CPUs), which were developed under a licence to use AMD's X86-based Zen chip architecture, did not have the hardware security flaw that affected a......

Amazon is slashing about 16,000 corporate jobs in the second round of mass lay-offs for the e-commerce company in three months. The tech giant has said it plans to use generative artificial intelligence to replace corporate workers. It has also been reducing a workforce that increased during the pandemic. Beth Galetti, a senior vice-president at Amazon, said in a blog post on Wednesday that the company has been “reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy”. The company did......