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Innovation

Saudi Arabia signs construction, smart-city deals with Chinese firms as cooperation grows

Urban development deals with partners including Huawei and ByteDance underscore growing cooperation between Riyadh and Beijing Saudi Arabia signed housing and construction agreements worth 1.9 billion riyals (US$507 million) with Chinese partners including China State Construction Engineering during a visit to China by its housing minister, as Riyadh deepens cooperation with Beijing on urban development projects. Speaking at a signing ceremony on Monday evening in Shenzhen, Minister of Municipalities and Housing Majid Al-Hogail said Saudi Arabia was accelerating housing and urban-development projects under its Vision 2030 strategy. He added that the kingdom expected cooperation with Chinese companies to support the comprehensive economic transformation plan, which was designed to reduce oil dependence and build new growth sectors. Beyond traditional construction, Saudi officials are increasingly looking to Chinese tech firms to support the planning, operation and management of their future cities.

June 17, 2026

Innovation

Can Chinese silicon replace Nvidia? Here are 5 AI models trained on local chips

A growing number of Chinese AI labs are experimenting with shifting earlier model training phases onto domestic chips Chinese artificial intelligence models have become increasingly competitive with their US peers, but the country’s AI hardware still lags significantly behind. While domestic chips are now widely adopted for model inference, none of China’s top models are known to have been pre-trained on homegrown silicon. To understand this gap, it helps to look at the three stages of AI model development. First is pre-training, the most computationally demanding phase, where a model feeds on massive data sets to learn basic patterns. Next is post-training, a less intense process that fine-tunes the model to follow specific human instructions. Finally comes inference, the everyday act of running the finished AI to answer user queries and instructions. Driven by Washington’s escalating export controls and Beijing’s push for technological self-sufficiency, a growing number of Chinese AI labs are now experimenting with shifting these earlier training phases onto domestic hardware.

June 17, 2026

Innovation

China’s AI outpaces global rivals but trails in trust, survey shows

Poll by London-based consultancy shows that more than 90% of respondents believe AI will transform the world – but fears persist Many people believe Chinese artificial intelligence models are leading the global tech race – even in countries considered key US allies – according to a new poll by the London-based consultancy Public First. However, the poll also revealed that China lags in trust regarding its AI models. The survey, which covered over 18,000 people across 15 countries, found that respondents from 11 nations acknowledged China’s AI leadership. These included Canada, Britain and France, where at least 40 per cent of those polled deemed China to be outpacing the US in AI capability and innovation. Germany was the least convinced of US leadership in AI, with only 23 per cent of respondents saying the US was ahead. Public First, which has no connection with Anthropic-backed Public First Action, did not conduct its poll in China. Among the Americans surveyed, nearly a quarter – or 24 per cent – said that China was ahead of the US, while 51 per cent stated the opposite. Nevertheless, the poll showed that AI models from the US were considered more trustworthy than those developed in China.

June 16, 2026

Innovation

Smart-driving chips: the weapon of choice in China’s EV tech war

Carmakers strive for more control over computing hardware to reduce reliance on Nvidia and Horizon Robotics A new front has opened in China’s electric-vehicle tech war as carmakers design their own smart-driving chips, turning custom silicon into the industry’s weapon of choice in the world’s largest auto market. The latest salvo came on Monday after Li Auto unveiled the Mach M100, a 5-nanometre artificial-intelligence chip tailored for autonomous driving. The announcement followed a string of breakthroughs by its rivals. Higher TOPS allow a vehicle’s computers to make split-second driving decisions by simultaneously crunching feeds from various sources such as radar and lidar sensors.

June 16, 2026

Innovation

Motorsport new battleground for Chinese carmakers as Geely and BYD rev up global drive

Billionaire Li Shufu, owner and chairman of Geely Auto, China’s second-largest carmaker, plans to bring the Superbike World Championship (WSBK) to the country, banking on the success of a home-grown motorcycle brand in competition. The move marked Geely’s latest step to sharpen its image as an international marque with advanced technologies and new models, according to analysts. Li and Zhang Xue, owner of ZXMOTO, agreed to jointly promote China’s hosting of the WSBK during their appearance on...

June 16, 2026

Innovation

‘Ni hao, Ah Bao’: China’s Alipay gets AI-agent overhaul to challenge big tech rivals

Fintech giant is seen leveraging its billion-user base to launch a conversational interface that coordinates 10,000 services, with safeguards Ant Group has unveiled the biggest overhaul of Alipay in two decades, transforming its ubiquitous mobile-payment app into a native AI platform with autonomous agents, as it strives to dominate China’s next-generation internet gateway. A trial version of the flagship app now features an interactive assistant named “Ah Bao”, marking a strategic pivot from a traditional digital wallet into an AI-driven ecosystem. Accessible via a right swipe on the homepage, the new interface allows users to access more than 10,000 everyday services – from ride-hailing to food delivery – through conversations with the Ah Bao bot. The feature is currently available on an invite-only basis, with plans for a gradual roll-out to all users, according to Alipay. To address potential security concerns inherent to autonomous artificial intelligence, Alipay said Ah Bao acts strictly as a process operator. All final payments and other financial actions were said to require explicit confirmation from users to prevent unauthorised transactions.

June 16, 2026

Innovation

AI for less: price war in China deepens amid ‘intense’ competition

Narrowing capability gaps between models and falling costs of service set stage for price reductions to continue, analysts say TikTok parent ByteDance and Shenzhen-based video gaming giant Tencent Holdings are the latest to launch AI price offensives. “China’s AI model landscape is vibrant and intensely competitive, with limited capability gaps across incumbents,” said analysts from investment consultancy Bank of America Securities in a research note on Monday. ByteDance on Monday introduced Seedance 2.0 Mini, a video-generation model, with a price of 23 yuan (US$3.40) for 1 million tokens – half the price of the standard version of the popular model. The move followed a promotional campaign that offered rebates to users of its Coze AI agent platform. With its lower pricing, ByteDance joined AI rivals including Chinese frontier lab DeepSeek and smartphone-to-vehicle giant Xiaomi. Both cut prices in late May, with Xiaomi making its MiMo V2.5 model 99 per cent cheaper, triggering other frontier labs to follow. Tencent last week cut prices for certain existing models on its TokenHub platform, slashing the cost of its own Hy-MT2-Pro by nearly 70 per cent.

June 16, 2026

Innovation

Alibaba eyes physical world with its first suite of AI models for robots

Alibaba unveils Qwen robot models to push AI beyond chatbots, as embodied intelligence becomes the next frontier in global AI Alibaba Group Holding has launched its first suite of artificial intelligence models for robots, joining a global race to move AI out of chatbot windows and into the physical world. The Hangzhou-based tech giant on Tuesday introduced the Qwen Robot Suite, marking its latest foray into “embodied AI” – machines that can perceive, reason and interact with physical environments. Developed by Alibaba’s AI research unit, Tongyi Lab, the suite has already entered pilot testing with selected Alibaba Cloud enterprise clients, according to the company. The suite splits robot intelligence into three interconnected layers. Qwen-RobotNav, a vision-language navigation model, is designed to help machines understand and move through physical spaces. It works in tandem with Qwen-RobotWorld, a video “world model” that lets robots predict and simulate how physical scenes will evolve before they take action. Then the physical execution is handled by Qwen-RobotManip, a generalist vision-language-action (VLA) model built on the Qwen3.5-4B architecture.

June 16, 2026

Innovation

AI’s next frontier, world models, and why China is ahead of the pack

They’ve been described as the “next frontier” of artificial intelligence (AI) – world models that go beyond large language models (LLMs) by simulating the physical environment. And in this emerging field, China has an edge over the United States. World models that understand the physical laws of the universe are already being used to train AI systems with embodied intelligence such as robots and self-driving vehicles. China has deployed such systems far more widely than the US – and this month,...

June 16, 2026

Innovation

AI agents face trust issues in ‘high-risk’ industrial sectors: experts

Expert says large language models struggle in professional domains due to lack of industrial data and knowledge during training China’s industrial sectors are racing to integrate artificial intelligence to boost efficiency, bolstered by state support, but experts warn that critical vertical markets – such as healthcare and aerospace – may be too “high risk” for the shift towards autonomous agents. Hailed as the driver of a “fourth industrial revolution”, AI is shifting away from chatbots to agentic AI – systems capable of independent execution within a workflow, industry experts said at the International Data Corporation (IDC) CIO Summit in Shenzhen on Friday. Upper-layer software, which includes consumer-facing apps and internal management systems, will be “entirely replaced by agents”, said Liu Xiangyang, chief information security officer of Midea Group, as these agents are designed to understand business logic and execute workflows “In the future, 90 per cent of an AI agent’s value will come from industrial expertise,” said Du Yanze, senior research manager at IDC.

May 17, 2026

Innovation

AI’s World Cup debut: real-time data poised to reshape football strategy, level the field

From pressing patterns to offside calls, football’s grandest stage will showcase how instant analysis transforms decisions in heat of play Each team will have access to its own AI model, allowing analysts to compare playing patterns through video clips and 3D avatars. Coaches will be able to assess how tactical changes might work against their next opponents, while players will receive personalised match analysis. The system, known as “Football AI Pro”, can analyse hundreds of millions of Fifa data points and process more than 2,000 football-related metrics, including pressing, movement, tactics and transitions. It delivers insights as text explanations, charts or short video clips, and was developed by Lenovo, Fifa’s technology partner for the tournament. “If in the past rich teams had an advantage, in 2026 AI will democratise data and give everyone a similar chance,” Bank of America Global Research wrote in a May 6 note. Jointly hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States across 16 cities, the 2026 Fifa World Cup will feature an expanded format of 48 teams and 104 matches. The opening game is scheduled for June 11.

May 17, 2026

Innovation

Anthropic’s plea for US to grow its AI edge over China is ‘irresponsible’: analysts

American firm’s warning about China’s tech capability seen by some as fearmongering as hopes of bilateral cooperation on AI safety rise Anthropic has urged the US to widen its edge over China in artificial intelligence capability to “avoid authoritarian AI leadership”, a warning which is being criticised by some industry experts as “irresponsible” and self-serving. Anthropic said that locking in a 12-to-24-month lead in frontier capabilities by 2028 would be “enormously advantageous”. This gap would allow the US to increase its engagement with AI experts in China in areas such as AI safety and governance, according to Anthropic. The prospect of the Communist Party leading in frontier AI is “among the greatest threats” to the future of humanity, “enabling repression at a scale that humans alone could not achieve”, Anthropic wrote. Anthropic, developer of the cutting-edge Claude models, is known to be a vocal critic of China’s AI advancement and a strong advocate for US chip export control measures.

May 15, 2026