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Profit trajectories between automotive assemblers and electric vehicle (EV) battery producers in China are set to diverge further due to lacklustre car sales and buoyant demand for energy-storage systems. Leading players, including China's EV battery king Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL), would continue to attract buying interest in their shares, spurred by improved profitability, according to analysts. They added that flat vehicle prices, coupled with a dip in new car sales, had......

While the world's largest memory-chip makers are reaping record profits from the artificial intelligence boom, traders in Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei electronics market are being left to deal with the fallout of a speculative frenzy that has sharply reversed, wiping out much of the value of their inventories since late 2025. “The market surge last year became so frantic that everyone from shoemakers to fishmongers piled into memory-chip speculation,” a trader surnamed Liu said from his cramped stall......

The release of DeepSeek's latest large language model, V4, has been followed by a wave of adoption among domestic semiconductor manufacturers and artificial intelligence chipmakers, with firms racing to support the model on local hardware platforms. The shift comes amid rising geopolitical tensions over advanced semiconductors. Here are some of the key players enabling the model's deployment on domestic hardware. Huawei Huawei Technologies was among the first to act, with the V4 fully adapted to......

China-made humanoid robots are beginning to gain traction in Japan, with models from Chinese firms Unitree and UBTech being deployed by Japan Airlines for baggage and cargo handling, highlighting the growing adoption of Chinese robotics technology as Japan grapples with acute labour shortages. Japan Airlines said last week that it would launch a two-year trial using humanoid robots for ground-handling operations at Tokyo's Haneda Airport through a partnership with GMO AI & Robotics. Tasks in the......

The competition could intensify at tenders for Hong Kong's residential plots as developers replenish their land banks amid a recovering property market, with the tug of war testing their financial discipline as they bid for parcels at a “noticeable premium”, according to S&P Global Ratings, though some analysts believe that the return of confidence is warranted given robust demand for housing units. The credit-rating agency also forecast a relatively modest residential market recovery, which......

Companies listed in mainland China have reached a historic milestone in their global operations. Total overseas revenues hit a record, with electronic and automobile giants such as Foxconn Technology Group and BYD among the top performers. Total overseas revenues of A-share companies approached 12.4 trillion yuan (US$1.8 trillion) last year, accounting for nearly 17 per cent of their total income – both figures representing all-time highs, according to data from state-backed newspaper Securities......

CK Hutchison Holdings' disposal of its investment in UK's biggest mobile phone operator has spurred speculation that the Li Ka-shing family-controlled conglomerate may channel part of the investment gain into dividends for shareholders. The sale of its 49 per cent stake in VodafoneThree would fetch a net gain of HK$4.7 billion (US$600 million), and if CK Hutchison reserved 40 per cent of the proceeds for payouts – as it has done on similar occasions – it would boost dividends by HK$0.50 per......

Kuala Lumpur is gaining ground as a leading financial hub, climbing three spots in the Global Financial Centres Index 39 to rank second in Asean last year. As competition intensifies across the region, the question for global business is no longer about whether to expand, but where to base that growth. At the heart of Malaysia's shift is Tun Razak Exchange (TRX), a purpose-built international financial centre developed to support the country's financial ecosystem and global ambitions. “TRX is a......

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......