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China and the United States are taking divergent paths to developing artificial intelligence (AI), putting their technology ecosystems increasingly at odds. This divergence was on show on April 24 when start-up DeepSeek launched its next-generation V4 AI models that were optimised for use with the Ascend chips and associated software tools of tech giant Huawei Technologies. China has for years been pursuing technological self-reliance, a policy reiterated by the Communist Party's Politburo at......

For German consumer Erik Böhme, a first visit to the Beijing auto show was an eye-opener – the world's largest car exhibition showcased a vast array of electric vehicle (EV) brands, many already gaining traction in Europe. “I think there will be more Chinese brands coming and being successful in Europe,” said Böhme, a freelance automotive consultant who spent two days at the event, which ran through May 3. Böhme was among 250 foreign media, clients and social media influencers invited by Geely......

China's chip champions channelled a larger proportion of revenue into research and development (R&D) than their US peers, first-quarter earnings show, as Beijing presses ahead with its tech self-reliance drive amid an artificial intelligence boom. Beijing-based Moore Threads spent half of its revenue on R&D in the quarter ended March 2026, while Shanghai-based MetaX spent 45 per cent over the same period, according to exchange filings. By contrast, US chipmakers such as AMD and Intel have......

Stocks in the Chinese mainland and across Asia rose on Wednesday morning, after US President Donald Trump said he would hold off on a contentious escort operation in the Strait of Hormuz and several US tech giants reported strong earnings. The markets on the Chinese mainland reopened trading after the Labour Day holiday, with the CSI 300 Index climbing 0.7 per cent as of 9.32am local time and the technology-heavy Star Market in Shanghai surging 5 per cent. Other major Asian markets all edged up.......

Canadian Solar, one of the industry's most exposed players to US-China tensions, is expanding the role of its Hong Kong operations as it reshapes its global business to weather a deepening downturn and rising geopolitical pressure, positioning the city as a hub for financing, talent and technology development, according to its board director. The Nasdaq-listed group, founded in 2001 by Chinese entrepreneur Shawn Qu, has been grappling with increasingly stringent compliance requirements from......

Investor frustration is growing with Hong Kong's technology index, as the benchmark's prolonged slide contrasts sharply with the soaring share prices of several Chinese AI firms that recently went public in the city. The Hang Seng Tech Index – a gauge of Hong Kong-listed tech companies that was once seen as China's answer to the Nasdaq – has come under pressure in recent months, and the index's poor performance has drawn even more scrutiny amid the wider surge in Chinese artificial intelligence......

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] The enterprise software landscape is undergoing a structural reckoning. According to recent market data, AI-native spending has surged by 94% year-on-year (YoY), nearly double the growth rate of hybrid tools and dramatically outpacing traditional SaaS, which has cooled to just 8%. Amidst this shift, omnichannel leader Omnichat today announces its definitive evolution into an AI-Native Agentic Customer Experience (CX)......

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] The AI systems delivering the strongest results today are the ones built in-house and trained on proprietary data Every enterprise has a body of knowledge that exists nowhere else: the decisions, patterns and lessons accumulated over years of operations. Customised AI turns that institutional knowledge into working intelligence that can reason with the specificity of an insider, deployed at the scale of an enterprise......

In China, computing facilities have emerged as a new form of infrastructure over the past two years, sparking an arms race among cities and technology companies to build 10,000-card computing clusters. These clusters – which link 10,000 or more artificial intelligence accelerator chips – enable faster iteration of AI capabilities and significantly reduce model training times. Domestic champions, from tech giants such as Huawei Technologies and Alibaba Group Holding to graphics processing unit......

Hong Kong property transactions surged to a four-month high in April, while the value and volume of home sales hit their highest level in 24 months, according to the latest official data, underscoring the resilience of the city's real estate sector amid uncertainties over interest rates and the US-Israel war on Iran. A total of 8,692 transactions across homes, offices, shops, car parking spots and industrial spaces were concluded last month, up 12.3 per cent from March's 7,737 deals, according......

Samsung Electronics' surprise leadership reshuffle in its TV division points to a strategic pivot away from a hardware-led model, analysts have said, as intensifying competition from Chinese rivals pushes the company to rethink how it generates revenue beyond television sales. The South Korean tech giant on Monday appointed Lee Won-jin, former head of its global marketing office, to lead the visual display business. Samsung said Lee was “expected to spearhead business turnarounds and identify......

WeRide boss Tony Han Xu believes the first fully autonomous cars may arrive on streets by 2035, as global carmakers and tech firms accelerate the application of self-driving technologies despite roadblocks. The latest setback came when Chinese regulators stepped in after an incident in Wuhan on March 31. Authorities scaled back the issuance of new autonomous driving licences after a system failure on March 31 involving Baidu's Apollo Go fleet, which left passengers stranded and disrupted traffic......

In March, Melco unveiled its Dream Entrance art installation by contemporary artist Daniel Arsham at its flagship integrated resort, City of Dreams. This twin-headed, labyrinthine structure explores the boundaries between dreams and reality, encouraging visitors to use their imaginations as a creative tool for innovation. Coinciding with the announcement of Chinese actor Jing Boran as new “Global Brand Ambassador” and ballet artist Tan Yuan Yuan as “Friend of the Brand”, the unveiling marks the......

HSBC, Hong Kong's largest lender, reported broadly flat first-quarter profit as lower interest rates and provisions linked to the Middle East conflict offset solid growth in its wealth management business. Net profit for the first three months of 2026 rose 0.14 per cent year on year to US$6.94 billion, or 41 US cents per share, the London-based bank said in a Hong Kong stock exchange filing on Tuesday. The result missed the US$7.07 billion consensus estimate of 17 analysts polled by the......

CK Hutchison Holdings said on Tuesday it had agreed to exit its 49 per cent stake in UK mobile operator VodafoneThree, in a £4.3 billion (US$5.82 billion) deal that will see it fully divest from the country's largest mobile network by subscribers. The transaction underscores a major shift for the Hong Kong-listed conglomerate, whose telecoms unit CK Hutchison Group Telecom Holdings (CKHGT) holds the stake, as it monetises its investment in a business with more than 28 million customers in the......

A desk with a laptop and a stack of books. A shirt waiting to be folded. A kitchen counter, a milk-tea stand and pile of building blocks – all in a single room. Robots of different shapes face their tasks with focus, controlled by a human operator. Pick up. Place. Fold. Repeat. This is not a film set, it is a data collection factory for embodied intelligence – a de facto “data foundry”. The facility, in Shanghai's Zhangjiang hi-tech zone, is run by Agibot, a fast-rising robotics company. The......

OCBC, the second-largest banking group in Southeast Asia, has agreed to acquire HSBC's retail and wealth management operation in Indonesia through its subsidiary, PT Bank OCBC NISP Tbk, according to the Singapore lender. The acquisition would add 336,000 customers and S$6.6 billion (US$5.17 billion) in assets under management to OCBC Indonesia, comprising S$4.3 billion of customers' investments in mutual funds and bonds, as well as insurances and customer deposits of S$2.3 billion, Monday......

Robots are beginning to reshape everyday life in China as the country accelerates its embrace of embodied artificial intelligence, handling tasks from cleaning homes and directing traffic to repairing equipment in hazardous factory settings. Embodied AI refers to AI embedded in physical machines, such as robots, that can sense their environment, make decisions and act in the real world. A cleaning service that launched in March on 58.com, a Chinese classifieds platform, pairs a human cleaner......

The war in the Middle East could create an opening for Hong Kong to develop into a regional commodities trading hub, as manufacturers in mainland China and across Asia look to the city to secure more stable metal supplies, according to industry participants. Manufacturers importing copper, aluminium and other industrial metals were increasingly considering Hong Kong as a storage base, while also seeking to tap its financial markets to hedge against price volatility driven by geopolitical......

Chinese self-driving technology firm ZYT is edging closer to mass production of semi-autonomous trucks that can improve fuel efficiency and save logistics costs, likely to benefit the country's manufacturing businesses amid a global energy crisis. The Shenzhen-based start-up, a spin-off from drone maker DJI, has formed partnerships with mainland China's top six heavy-truck makers to produce models fitted with its navigation on autopilot (NOA) systems, with the first deliveries expected as early......