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Ganfeng Lithium, the world's largest producer of lithium metal, has issued a strong profit forecast for the first quarter of this year as soaring demand for electric vehicles (EVs) and energy storage system (ESS) batteries lifted earnings. The company, based in China's central Jiangxi province, said in an exchange filing on Thursday that increasing orders had driven up prices of lithium – a key material for EV and ESS batteries – helping it post an estimated profit of 1.6 billion yuan (US$234......

A wave of companies, from the start-up launched by artificial intelligence “godmother” Li Fei-Fei to the largest Chinese tech firms, are racing to introduce their latest approaches to world models – an emerging field aimed at extending AI beyond language processing to learning from and comprehending physical reality. Alibaba Group Holding on Thursday unveiled Happy Oyster, which it called an open-ended world model designed for real-time and “flowy” virtual world creation and interaction,......

Beijing has raised the limit on banks' overseas lending – a move that analysts say will support Chinese firms in outbound investment expansions while helping to stabilise the yuan. Regulators raised the overseas-loan leverage ratio for foreign banks in China and their joint ventures with Chinese lenders from 0.5 to 1.5 on Wednesday, according to a statement published by the central bank and the foreign exchange regulator. In a separate statement, the regulators said that the new rules would......

US artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic's move to introduce real-name identity verification has triggered alarm in China, raising the prospect that access to its tools could be cut off entirely and prompting black-market vendors to scramble for workarounds. The shift highlights the strong demand for Anthropic's Claude models in China, despite an official ban that also covers Hong Kong and Macau. The company said the restrictions were necessary for national security reasons amid......

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) expects a revenue surge of more than 30 per cent in 2026 as the world's largest contract chipmaker “pulls in all equipment” to ramp up supply, as management downplayed the impact of memory price hikes and Middle East tensions. During its first-quarter earnings call on Thursday, company executives voiced optimism for the year ahead anchored by the global AI frenzy, attributing the expected revenue surge to strong demand for artificial intelligence and......

Geopolitical tensions are expected to further drive fundraising demand in the mining sector amid a commodities “supercycle”, although concerns over national security could complicate dealmaking, according to industry experts. Johnson Chui, head of global issuer services at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX), said 2025 had been an inflection point. Mining and metals companies had become a key driver in the capital market as rising commodity prices, triggered by the energy transition and......

US investor sentiment towards Hong Kong and China equities has shifted notably, with US$14 billion in inflows over the three-month period to the end of February – the largest quarterly inflow in more than three years – lifting total holdings to US$466 billion, a record high, according to a BNP Paribas report on Thursday. “This may suggest a shift in the willingness of US capital owners to allocate more capital to Chinese equities after the substantive outflows seen between 2021 and the first......

Non-invasive brain-computer interfaces (BCI) that read neural signals through the skin could help patients manage symptoms for some brain conditions, according to BrainCo, a Harvard-incubated start-up. BrainCo's BCI technology could “read brain neural signals and translate them into commands to control machines to modulate brain function and help cure some brain diseases”, said Nyx He, a partner and senior vice-president of BrainCo, at the HSBC Global Investment Summit on Thursday. The......

At first glance, the rupee is staging a recovery. India's battered currency has gained around 1.5 per cent since March 27, making it the best-performing currency in Asia, according to Bloomberg data. However, the recent bounce belies vulnerabilities in India's economy that have been exacerbated by the energy shock emanating from the war in Iran. India is one of the most exposed among Asia's leading economies, importing 90 per cent of its oil and more than half its liquefied petroleum gas.......

Chinese suppliers of parts for Tesla's electric vehicles (EVs) and robots saw their stock prices gain on Thursday morning as the US tech giant announced that its AI5 artificial intelligence inference chip was 45 days ahead of schedule. After a nearly 7.7 per cent jump in Tesla's Nasdaq-listed stock on Wednesday, shares of the company's Chinese suppliers were up by as much as 4.6 per cent on Thursday morning local time. Shanghai-listed Ningbo Tuopu Group and Shenzhen-listed Zhejiang Sanhua......

Mainland China's first-tier home prices edged up 0.2 per cent in March, rising after nine months of losses and no change in February, but it is too soon to declare the property market stable without sustained improvement in homebuying demand, according to analysts. Compared with a month earlier, March home prices were flat in Beijing, rose 0.3 per cent in Shanghai and Guangzhou, and gained 0.2 per cent in Shenzhen, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on......

Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), the world's largest producer of electric vehicle (EV) batteries, rallied after creating a subsidiary to manage its mining assets, signalling a deeper push into the energy storage business. Its Shenzhen-listed shares rose 4.4 per cent to 450.14 yuan on Thursday, lifting its market capitalisation above 2 trillion yuan (US$293.4 billion), while its Hong Kong-listed stock jumped 10 per cent to HK$723. Other energy storage-related stocks on the mainland also......

Shares of Chinese energy storage system (ESS) maker Sigenergy Technology jumped over 83 per cent on their Hong Kong trading debut, as concerns surrounding energy security due to the conflict in the Middle East boost demand for renewable-energy solutions. The Shanghai-based company's shares opened at HK$581, versus its offer price of HK$324.20. It climbed further to HK$595 at the lunch break. The firm raised HK$4.4 billion (US$560 million) from its initial public offering. On the grey market on......

Mark Mobius, who was known as the father of emerging markets and was among the first fund managers to invest in Hong Kong and mainland China, died on Wednesday at the age of 89, according to a statement on his LinkedIn account. The statement did not give the cause. Mobius was based in Dubai in recent years and remained active in investment via his own firm. He was managing director of Mobius Emerging Opportunities Fund. Mobius remained bullish on China throughout his career. In his last......

Many world-class cities are prioritising efforts to enhance their health technology infrastructures to attract more clinical trials and research projects. These can offer many benefits not only to pharmaceutical companies and research institutes, but also – potentially – give the public better access to innovative treatment options and raise the overall quality of their healthcare system. Hong Kong, backed by two top‑ranked medical schools and one of the world's most active capital markets, is......

Dutch chipmaker ASML upgraded its 2026 sales outlook on Wednesday, citing strong demand, even as China's share of global shipments continued to decline and the firm braced for a potential new round of US export controls targeting China. The company projected net sales for the year to fall between €36 billion (US$42.5 billion) and €40 billion, as it released its first-quarter results, up from its previous forecast of between €34 billion and €39 billion made in January. The semiconductor......

Futu Securities is the latest non-food and beverage retailer to sell coffee and other drinks in one of its outlets in Hong Kong as the online stock brokerage adapts to its clients' lifestyle, according to a spokesman. Futu Café was officially launched on Thursday at the Futu Store on Lee Garden Road, Causeway Bay, close to its flagship store on Russell Street. Cups of espresso, Americano and iced blue coconut water, among other drinks, are available between 7.30am and 7.30pm. The launch of the......

Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL), China's electric vehicle (EV) battery king, plans to earmark 30 billion yuan (US$4.4 billion) to establish a subsidiary to manage and expand mining assets, after the global energy shock paved the way for a quicker entry into the world's automotive and energy storage system (ESS) markets. The investment arm, in line with CATL's long-term growth strategy, would integrate existing mining assets, pursue high-quality mineral projects at home and abroad, and......

Billionaire Elon Musk seems to have embraced TikTok, the world's most popular short video site, more than two years after he said he stopped using the platform, as he felt its artificial intelligence algorithm was “probing” his mind. A verified @elonmusk handle recently posted a video on the site run by China's ByteDance, signalling a truce – or perhaps a strategic surrender – to the platform's massive global reach. The account features the same profile picture as Musk's account on X, the social......

US e-commerce giant Amazon has launched its first smart warehouse in Shenzhen, aiming to cut storage costs for local merchants by up to 45 per cent as competition with Chinese rivals Shein and PDD Holdings' Temu intensifies in cross-border trade. The facility – Amazon's first Global Warehousing and Distribution (GWD) centre worldwide – will serve as an “all-in-one” logistics hub for Chinese sellers targeting US customers, located at the heart of Shenzhen's manufacturing base, the company said at......