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“State-of-the-art” (Sota) artificial intelligence models excel at solving complex Olympiad maths but still struggle with everyday enterprise tasks, according to an executive from a top AI unicorn in the US. David Meyer, senior vice-president of product at US data processing and analysis company Databricks, told the South China Morning Post in a recent interview that the very traits making models state-of-the-art could cause issues in basic office work. For instance, when tasked with identifying......

Chinese biomedical companies deploying cutting-edge technologies are emerging as serious competitors to Western dominance in the race to treat Parkinson's disease, in a market that could reach US$16 billion over the next decade. The firms are developing a range of approaches – from autologous cell therapies made from a patient's own cells and ready-made cell products to gene therapies and non-invasive ultrasounds – although many of these candidates are still in early-stage trials. Many patients......

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) powered by large language models presents a significant breakthrough. For the first time, humans are communicating with computers using language instructions. This has enabled the use of AI agents to perform intelligent tasks involving some degree of advanced reasoning and complex logic. Vibe coding – the use of AI for programming and software development by lay persons – empowers end-user application deployments. One-person companies using AI agents to......

The winner of a robot half-marathon held in Beijing on Sunday smashed the current human world record by more than six minutes in the latest display of the industry's rapid development. The humanoid device, known as Lightning, was developed by the Chinese smartphone and gadget company Honor, which only entered the sector last year. Its finishing time of 50 minutes 26 seconds was far quicker than the current men's world record of 57:20 held by the Ugandan runner Jacob Kiplimo and around 17 minutes......

The US-Israeli war on Iran has unleashed sharp swings across global energy and financial markets, fuelling demand for safe-haven assets, with Hong Kong emerging as a potential beneficiary across gold, property and capital markets. In the second of a three-part series, we look at Hong Kong's position as a stable base where demand for property has held firm despite the global turmoil. Hong Kong's property market is showing early signs of renewed safe haven demand, with a surge in luxury......

As the artificial intelligence race moves beyond language models into the physical world, Asia's manufacturing and supply chain strengths could give it an edge over the US, says Granite Asia's Jixun Foo. The veteran venture capitalist said the current wave of AI development, sparked by breakthroughs in foundation models over the past two years, had entered a new phase where physical applications – from robotics to industrial automation – were becoming increasingly important, playing to Asia's......

Growing public anxiety over artificial intelligence-driven job loss, especially in technology and other white-collar sectors, has weighed on housing sentiment in the US and India. Yet data remains insufficient to quantify the direct impact of AI-related job fears on China's sluggish home-buying sentiment, though analysts expect such concerns to make households more cautious about long-term housing purchase decisions. China's rapid AI adoption to boost automation and productivity had implications......

China's artificial intelligence model companies are unlikely to “eat up” the domestic software market because they lack the deep industry know-how and experience to meet enterprise needs, according to an HSBC analyst. Unlike the US, China's less developed software-as-a-service (SaaS) market stands to gain even as AI models continue to improve, with the most likely outcome being a collaborative approach where model companies and legacy software firms serve enterprises in tandem, said Yiran Liu,......

Homebuyers continued to signal confidence in Hong Kong's residential market on Saturday, with about three quarters of 248 new flats put up for sale snapped up by late afternoon. A total of 53 out of 88 units were sold at The Pavilia Farm III, while 129 of 160 units at KT Marina II in Kai Tak were taken as of 4.30pm, according to Midland Realty. The Pavilia Farm III, a project jointly developed by New World Development (NWD) and MTR Corp atop Tai Wai Station in Sha Tin, saw buyers throng the......

Huawei Technologies claimed the top spot in China's smartphone market in the first quarter with its highest share in five years, while Apple saw the strongest growth among the top six players, despite a global memory chip crunch. Huawei held a 20 per cent share in the first three months, the highest since the fourth quarter of 2020, according to a Friday report by Counterpoint Research. Chinese government subsidies that offered a 15 per cent discount for gadgets under 6,000 yuan (US$880), along......

The US-Israeli war on Iran has unleashed sharp swings across global energy and financial markets, fuelling demand for safe-haven assets, with Hong Kong emerging as a potential beneficiary across gold, property and capital markets. In the first of a three-part series, we examine Hong Kong's bid to position itself as Asia's bullion hub. War in the Middle East has intensified global demand to diversify gold storage, creating a strategic window for Hong Kong to tap its unique status and evolve from......

A quarter featuring multiple eye-popping deals is no longer unusual for China's pharmaceutical industry – in fact, it may soon be considered a slow season. In recent months, companies including CSPC Pharmaceutical and RemeGen have struck out-licensing agreements worth up to US$18.5 billion and US$5.6 billion respectively, while Haisco Pharmaceutical Group has added two of its own — most recently a deal worth up to US$745 million. Under the terms of the deal, the Beijing-based Haisco granted US......

Hong Kong is better placed than many of its Asian peers to turn stablecoins into commercially viable products at scale, underpinned by its early lead in tokenisation and growing experience in moving financial infrastructure on-chain, according to HSBC's head of digital assets research. “Hong Kong already has examples of deploying the technology and can now look towards commercial applications and scaling,” said Daragh Maher, HSBC's head of digital assets research, in an interview on the......

As China's artificial intelligence sector accelerates, competition for top talent has intensified among major tech companies, with firms increasingly poaching from rivals while also attracting researchers from overseas hubs such as Silicon Valley. A reported high-profile personnel move involving DeepSeek researcher Guo Daya recently drew attention to the sensitivity surrounding AI hiring in China's tech sector. Guo, a lead researcher on DeepSeek's R1 model, joined ByteDance's Seed AI development......

The Trump administration and Anthropic's CEO on Friday discussed working together for the first time since a dispute earlier this year between the Pentagon and the artificial intelligence firm over how that company's models should be used. The meeting between CEO Dario Amodei and White House staff, which took place amid growing ‌fears the AI start-up's latest model will supercharge cyberattacks, suggests the two sides might be on a path to rebuilding trust. The Trump administration, central......

China's leading LED chipmaker and its Malaysian partner have abandoned their US$239 million cash offer to purchase Dutch technology company Lumileds Holding after opposition from US authorities, marking the latest setback for Chinese tech investment overseas following the high-profile Nexperia saga. Sanan Optoelectronics, listed in Shanghai, said in a disclosure announcement on Friday that despite multiple rounds of discussions, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)......

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) has proposed halving the cash settlement cycle for share trading as part of efforts to enhance market efficiency and liquidity. The city's bourse operator said in a consultation paper on Friday that it aimed to implement a “T+1” system – under which trades are settled one day after the transaction – in the fourth quarter of 2027, replacing the existing “T+2” cycle. If adopted, the shortened cycle would apply to equities, exchange-traded products,......

For pet food container seller Chen Junbin, customs used to be a major bottleneck when shipping from Shenzhen in southern China to his customers in the US. “In the past, we had to handle all the paperwork and coordinate with multiple logistics suppliers ourselves; a single [customs] inspection could delay our shipment by a week,” said Chen, founder of Shenzhen Lightning Technology. As one of the first sellers to test Amazon's Global Warehousing and Distribution (GWD) facility, the US giant's new......

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on a recent podcast that if Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek optimised its new models on chips from Huawei Technologies, it would be “a horrible outcome” for the US. If “future AI models are optimised in a very different way than the American tech stack”, and as “AI diffuses out into the rest of the world” with Chinese standards and technology, China “will become superior to” the US, Huang said on the Dwarkesh Podcast on Wednesday. The conversation......

A 32-year-old investor in central Hunan never expected a routine phone call about stock tips would leave him nursing heavy losses. In a post on RedNote, he said a caller claiming ties to private equity firms offered daily stock recommendations, urging him to buy within fixed quotas in exchange for sharing half the profits. “It was sketchy – I'm now trapped in the market and down almost 20 per cent,” he said on Thursday. His experience reflects a broader surge in scams targeting retail investors,......