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TikTok's ⁠Chinese parent, ByteDance, has put ⁠on hold the global ⁠launch of its latest video-generation model, Seedance 2.0, after copyright disputes with major Hollywood studios and streaming platforms, The Information reported on Saturday, citing two people with direct knowledge of the situation. Reuters could not ‌immediately verify the report. ByteDance did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ByteDance said last month it would take steps to prevent the unauthorised use of......

Artificial intelligence (AI) runs on electricity. Sometimes that electricity might come from a jet engine. FTAI Aviation, a New York-based aircraft engine lessor and maintenance provider valued at more than US$25 billion, plans to convert roughly 100 retired CFM56 engines a year into turbines producing about 25 megawatts each. The CFM56 is one of the most widely used jet engines, with more than 30,000 delivered to date, powering the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 families. Having exhausted their......

Several years ago, prime ground-floor spaces in major shopping malls across Beijing and Shanghai's business districts were commonly occupied by electric vehicle (EV) showrooms, with staff often escorting customers to car parks for test drives. Many of these stores have now closed amid sluggish EV sales – yet mall owners have not been left disappointed. Instead, a new retail landscape is emerging, filled with tenants who are proving to be even more effective at drawing crowds and boosting rental......

For Hong Kong's Topaz Family Office, investing in hotels in Japan holds up as a sound decision even as a Middle East war clouds the macroeconomic environment. The wealth manager has made Japan a central plank of its pivot into hospitality and real estate over the past two years, driven by a sharp post-pandemic tourism rebound. The investment thesis now looks increasingly robust thanks to multiple structural tailwinds and a growing pool of institutional capital flowing into the same trade. “Japan......

Global businesses are pouring billions into artificial intelligence amid a growing fear of missing out on enterprise AI strategies, according to Ken Wong, president of Lenovo's Solutions & Services Group (SSG). However, despite projections of massive financial returns, the vast majority of these initiatives were not deemed a success, he added. Wong, whose division helps businesses build and maintain AI infrastructure, estimated more than 90 per cent of these pilots fail to reach satisfactory......

Aridge, the flying-car developer backed by Chinese electric vehicle maker Xpeng, has raised nearly US$200 million in fresh funding as it prepares for a potential initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong this year. Existing investors including GL Ventures, the venture capital arm of Hillhouse Investment, and HongShan – formerly Sequoia China – participated in the latest round, according to a statement released on Friday. The fundraising brings Aridge's total equity financing to about US$1......

Developers launched 360 flats across two projects in Hong Kong on Saturday, as builders continued to test buyer demand amid improving housing sentiment and expectations that future supply could tighten. The launches included 160 units at Zendo House in Tsim Sha Tsui, developed by Chinachem Group, and 200 units at Cloudview in Sheung Shui, developed by Wing Tai Properties. As of 12pm on Saturday, 67 units had been sold across the two developments, according to Centaline Property. “I am confident......

Chinese companies in several sectors – including energy, petrochemicals and agriculture – stand to benefit from surging oil prices and the yuan's easing deflation, which analysts said could help investors find gains amid the negative effects of the Middle East war. Petrochemical companies on mainland China's exchanges, including Satellite Chemical and Guangdong Redwall New Materials, raised product prices to reflect the surge in oil costs, a move that sent their stock prices soaring. Fertiliser......

By the time software programmer Guo Cancan realised something had gone horribly wrong with OpenClaw – the task-executing AI agent that has ignited a fervour across China – the damage was already done. While on holiday over the Chinese New Year, Guo was tinkering with the autonomous open-source program. When he attempted to resolve an error that it had made, OpenClaw responded by deleting nearly everything on his computer's D: drive – a major storage partition – wiping out years of personal data......

The OpenClaw craze is rapidly driving up prices and depleting stock of Apple's Mac Mini compact computer across China, according to local sellers, as consumers scramble to secure machines capable of safely running the open-source artificial intelligence agent amid a nationwide rush to “raise a lobster”. Beijing electronics seller Frank Chai said he was asking for a mark-up of at least 500 yuan (US$73) for a basic Mac Mini model, which comes with 16 gigabytes (GB) of memory and 256GB storage and......

JPMorgan Chase has committed to leasing about 250,000 sq ft of space in the new Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP) office towers in Hong Kong's West Kowloon district for 10 years, making the US investment bank the anchor tenant of the 700,000 sq ft mixed-use development, the Hong Kong-listed developer said on Friday. Artist Square Towers (AST) will house the bank's Kowloon office, which is currently located at The Quayside in Kowloon East, starting in the latter half of 2028, according to an......

In a landmark development, Neuracle Medical Technology has secured the country's first-ever approval for an implantable brain-computer interface (BCI) system designed to restore hand motor function in patients with spinal cord injuries, in a regulatory milestone that underscores China's accelerating push in neurotechnology. China's BCI start-ups, seen as potential rivals to Elon Musk's Neuralink, are gaining momentum as regulatory support and fresh capital fuel growth. Shares of BCI companies......

Li Xiaopeng is China's most decorated gymnast, having won 16 world titles, including four Olympic gold medals. Although he retired from the sport in 2009, the mindset and principles he carried as an elite athlete continue to apply to his other roles in life, namely those of a father and an entrepreneur. Li recently met with Victoria Tang-Owen – a Hong Kong-based designer and creative director as well as a fellow parent – to discuss how being a history-making, successful athlete has influenced......

Apple announced a reduction in the App Store commissions it charges developers in China ahead of the annual World Consumer Rights Day, drawing approval from the country's biggest gaming companies Tencent Holdings and NetEase. The US tech company said it would reduce the commission for standard in-app purchases and paid app transactions on iPhone and iPad to 25 per cent, from the current 30 per cent, according to a statement on its website on Thursday. Meanwhile, the commission rate for......

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) has unveiled its biggest listing reforms since 2018, broadening its special listing regime for innovative companies and opening the door for smaller and more diverse firms to list in the city, the bourse operator said on Friday. HKEX proposed lowering the minimum threshold for companies to list under the weighted voting rights regime to a minimum valuation of HK$20 billion (US$2.6 billion), half the current requirement of at least HK$40 billion. It will......

This year's 'two sessions', China's biggest annual political gathering, featured the announcement of the lowest GDP growth target in decades and official approval for the 15th five-year plan. SCMP Plus hosted a webinar to discuss these developments with three experts from the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis. Other topics included the upcoming US-China presidential summit, President Xi Jinping's purge of the military and efforts to reshape the economy. The panel......

Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group's recent launch of a series of high-priced gold-inlaid accessories on the mainland has sparked online debate amid China's slowing consumer market. Last week, the Hong Kong-listed jeweller showcased several items on its official Weibo account, including a diamond-studded gold AirPods case priced at 788,800 yuan (US$115,000) and gold-inlaid hair clips costing 2,080 yuan each, containing 0.42 grams of gold. The earphone case, made with about 350 grams of gold, was......

Cambricon Technologies, a Chinese semiconductor designer seen as a potential alternative to US giant Nvidia, will pay its maiden dividend after posting its first full-year profit since listing in 2020. Cambricon, dubbed “little Nvidia”, planned to distribute a cash dividend of 15 yuan (US$2.2) for every 10 shares held, totalling more than 632 million yuan, according to its filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Thursday. Another 20 million yuan would be allocated for share buy-backs, taking......

Tesla has emerged as a rare outlier in China's slowing electric vehicle (EV) market, posting a massive sales surge in February even as domestic leaders like BYD grapple with double-digit declines. The US carmaker's Shanghai Gigafactory delivered nearly 58,600 vehicles to Chinese buyers last month, up 91 per cent compared with the same period last year, according to data from automotive platform Dongchedi. Sales of Model Y stood at 41,404 units, while Model 3 accounted for 17,195 units. Starting......

Hong Kong stocks fell as the US-Iran war shows no signs of ending, with a hardline stance from both sides pushing oil prices up. The Hang Seng Index fell 0.5 per cent to 25,587 as of 9.40am. The Hang Seng Tech Index dropped 0.4 per cent. On the mainland, the CSI 300 Index was little changed and the Shanghai Composite Index shed 0.4 per cent. US President Donald Trump said in a social media post on Thursday that stopping Iran from having nuclear weapons and threatening the Middle East was of “far......