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It could be “time-consuming”, “complex” and “difficult” for Meta Platforms to unwind its acquisition of Manus, an artificial intelligence start-up that originated in China, given how far the deal has gone, according to analysts. Beijing's order on Monday blocking the US$2 billion deal came roughly four months after the acquisition was announced. During that time, Manus – developer of what it described as the world's first general AI agent – provided Meta employees with unlimited-usage accounts,......

Chinese industrial robot maker Shenzhen Inovance Technology submitted an initial public offering (IPO) application in Hong Kong on Tuesday, joining a wave of mainland tech firms seeking capital from international investors. Founded in 2003, Inovance is seen as a cornerstone of China's industrial automation sector. The company's shares, listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange since 2010, closed at 61.36 yuan on Tuesday, giving it a market capitalisation of nearly 175.3 billion yuan (US$25.6......

Alibaba Group Holding has released an artificial intelligence model that it claims is more sensitive than radiologists in spotting early stage colorectal cancer from computed tomography (CT) scans, as the Chinese tech giant doubles down on its efforts to develop AI tools for cancer detection. Alibaba's research arm Damo Academy said on Tuesday that its new Coca AI model accurately identified five previously missed cases of colorectal cancer from the non-contrast CT scans of more than 27,000......

BYD's first-quarter net profit matched market estimates as China's electric vehicle (EV) king partly offset weakness in its domestic market with rising exports. The mainland's largest and most profitable EV maker reported a net profit of nearly 4.09 billion yuan (US$590 million) for the first three months of the year, a drop of 55 per cent compared with a year earlier. Revenue came in at 150.2 billion yuan, down 11.8 per cent from a year earlier. The market's consensus estimate was 4.09 billion......

The potential emergence of a new DeepSeek spokesman has sparked intrigue as speculation over the whereabouts of founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng continues, more than a year after his last public appearance. While the Hangzhou start-up's latest V4 model did not make the same waves as its breakout moment a year earlier, the much-anticipated release still grabbed headlines through a collaboration with domestic tech giant Huawei Technologies and its remarkably low prices. For the traditionally......

Battery makers and electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers have seized on the Beijing Auto Show to showcase technologies promising shorter charging times in a race triggered by BYD and Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL). Fast-charging technology has dominated the floor at the 10-day event which runs until May 3. Second-tier Chinese battery suppliers including CALB Group, EVE Energy and Sunwoda unveiled products capable of boosting power to 70 per cent, from a starting point of 10 per cent,......

Shares of WuXi AppTec surged both on the mainland and in Hong Kong after stronger-than-expected quarterly results lifted sentiment across the contract research and innovative drug sectors. The pharmaceutical company's Shanghai-listed shares rose by their daily limit of 10 per cent to close at 110.57 yuan on Tuesday, while its Hong Kong shares ended 14 per cent higher at HK$143.10, the highest since December 2021. The gains followed the company's market-beating first-quarter earnings released......

China has stepped up its tech war with the United States, blocking Facebook owner Meta's US$2.5 billion acquisition of artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Manus and raising cybersecurity concerns about Anthropic's new AI model Claude Mythos Preview. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced it was prohibiting the Manus deal in a one-sentence statement on Monday, which didn't give a specific reason. Meta is now planning to unwind the acquisition, which means untangling......

Alibaba Group Holding's plan to package a key warehousing hub into a real estate investment trust (Reit) for public listing will benefit the company and its shareholders by redeploying capital into higher-growth opportunities, according to analysts. Alibaba, which two years ago scrapped a plan to publicly list its Cainiao logistics operation, said in a filing on Monday that it had received regulatory approval from the Hong Kong stock exchange to proceed with a proposal to spin off a certain......

Hong Kong's lived-in home prices rose 1.4 per cent in March, bringing the first-quarter increase to an accelerated pace of 4.4 per cent, according to the latest official data, indicating the property market's resilience despite uncertainties brought about by the US-Israel war on Iran. The monthly increase was slower than February's 1.8 per cent, but 2026's first-quarter rise was faster than the 2.11 per cent growth in the fourth quarter of 2025. The city's rental prices also extended their......

Lightelligence, the first mainland Chinese photonics chipmaker to go public in Hong Kong, saw its share price surge by nearly 400 per cent in its trading debut on Tuesday, as investors banked on the country's quest for a fast-growing alternative to conventional electronic semiconductors in artificial intelligence data centres. The Shanghai-based company opened at HK$880, versus the offer price of HK$183.2 – the top of its marketed range of HK$166.6 to HK$183.2. It raised HK$2.4 billion (US$310......

Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL), the world's biggest maker of lithium batteries for new-energy vehicles, plans to raise HK$39.2 billion (US$5 billion) in a private share placement, stepping up efforts to expand its renewables business amid a global oil crunch. In a statement to Hong Kong's stock exchange before trading opened on Tuesday morning, the company said it planned to sell 62.4 million Hong Kong-traded shares for HK$628.20 apiece to at least six unspecified investors. The......

British industrial conglomerate Rolls-Royce is strengthening its presence in China via a newly launched engine maintenance joint venture with Air China, as domestic demand for commercial air travel grows. The joint venture, Beijing Aero Engine Services (BAESL), which became operational in December, provides engine maintenance services for Chinese airlines. The company said it planned to leverage this partnership to serve overseas carriers in future. “China is an important market for Rolls-Royce,......

DeepSeek has slashed prices on its artificial intelligence models, including its latest V4 which now costs 97 per cent less than OpenAI products, potentially triggering a price war in the highly competitive AI market. DeepSeek said on Sunday that it would reduce prices for “input cache hits” – where previously processed context was reused – for application programming interface (API) users to one-tenth of the original level, bringing the minimum input cost down to about US$0.14 per million......

Alibaba Group Holding gained approval from the Hong Kong stock exchange to proceed with a proposed spin-off of a warehouse park in mainland China, two years after the tech giant withdrew the listing plan of its logistics arm Cainiao. The e-commerce giant said it could separate an infrastructure real estate investment trust (Reit) and list it on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, with the underlying asset being the Jiaxing Park, a logistics and warehousing infrastructure hub in eastern China's Zhejiang......

Chinese optical chipmaker Yuanjie Semiconductor Technology reported an elevenfold surge in first-quarter profits as domestic firms capitalise on soaring demand for computing power amid the artificial intelligence boom and the country's tech self-sufficiency drive. Net profit in the three months ended March 31 jumped 1,153 per cent year on year to 179 million yuan (US$26.2 million), while revenue grew 321 per cent to 355 million yuan, the Shanghai-listed company said in a stock-exchange filing on......

Chinese robotaxi firms from Pony AI to WeRide are accelerating global roll-outs of commercial fleets, leveraging cost competitiveness from the country's world-leading new energy vehicle (NEV) supply chain and improved operational efficiency, company executives have said. China's NEV supply chain had helped reduce the total cost of Pony AI's upgraded seventh-generation robotaxi – including the base vehicle, battery and autonomous driving kit – to below 230,000 yuan (US$33,700), making it cheaper......

Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL) has taken a leap forward in commercialising sodium-ion batteries, signing a large supply contract with an energy-storage system (ESS) provider amid high demand for energy infrastructure after the global oil shock. The world's largest electric vehicle (EV) and ESS battery maker announced on Monday that it would deliver 60 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of sodium-ion batteries to Beijing HyperStrong Technology over three years in a landmark deal for the new battery......

China has vowed to better protect the country's vast gig-economy workforce, as an economic slowdown leads millions of people to sign up for delivery, ride-hailing and other informal jobs on online platforms. The 12-point plan – issued by the State Council, China's cabinet, and the Communist Party's powerful Central Committee – pledges stronger labour protections for “new employment groups”, or gig workers, across a number of areas. The document calls for timely and fair wage payments, a stronger......

China's drug maker WuXi AppTec reported record first-quarter revenue, as a robust order backlog and sustained demand from global pharmaceutical companies supported growth. For the three months ended March 31, the Shanghai- and Hong Kong-listed company posted revenue of 12.44 billion yuan (US$1.72 billion), up 28.81 per cent year on year, according to a filing released on Monday. Net profit climbed nearly 27 per cent to 4.65 billion yuan in the quarter. Both revenue and net profit exceeded market......