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Reporter’s notebook: Kimi’s AI credit card turns spending into computing quotas – with limits
Innovation

Reporter’s notebook: Kimi’s AI credit card turns spending into computing quotas – with limits

China’s artificial intelligence companies have spent years persuading consumers to pay for their technology. Now, Moonshot AI, the start-up behind Kimi, is taking a different approach: offering AI computing benefits through a credit card. The company has teamed up with the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) and American Express for what it calls “the world’s first AI native credit card”. After getting one for myself, the experience offered an intriguing way to bring AI services into everyday...

Alibaba to embed AI throughout Taobao, Tmall merchant operations in 2027: executive
Innovation

Alibaba to embed AI throughout Taobao, Tmall merchant operations in 2027: executive

Alibaba Group Holding’s two major domestic online marketplaces, Taobao and Tmall, plan to greatly expand the use of artificial intelligence across merchants’ operations next year, a senior executive said, as the e-commerce giant doubles down on the technology to drive growth amid a challenging consumer landscape. “Starting next year, AI will comprehensively enter the internal enterprise workflows of merchants,” Liu Bo, president of Tmall, said at the company’s Singles’ Day media briefing on...

Alibaba to embed AI throughout Taobao, Tmall merchant operations in 2027: executive
Innovation

Alibaba to embed AI throughout Taobao, Tmall merchant operations in 2027: executive

Alibaba Group Holding’s two major domestic online marketplaces, Taobao and Tmall, plan to greatly expand the use of artificial intelligence across merchants’ operations next year, a senior executive said, as the e-commerce giant doubles down on the technology to drive growth amid a challenging consumer landscape. “Starting next year, AI will comprehensively enter the internal enterprise workflows of merchants,” Liu Bo, president of Tmall, said at the company’s Singles’ Day media briefing on...

ASML eyes hybrid bonding, report finds, as Chinese firms adopt chip packaging technique
Innovation

ASML eyes hybrid bonding, report finds, as Chinese firms adopt chip packaging technique

Dutch semiconductor equipment giant ASML is expanding into next-generation hybrid bonding, a technique that creates dense electrical connections by directly joining chips or silicon wafers, according to a new report. Major Chinese companies are also adopting the technology to improve chip performance. ASML submitted 27 patent families related to hybrid bonding tools between December 2022 and November 2024, according to a report published by semiconductor and AI supply chain research firm...

China’s AI boom, self-sufficiency push fuel earnings surge for local chip firms
Innovation

China’s AI boom, self-sufficiency push fuel earnings surge for local chip firms

Chinese chip and tech firms have flagged as much as six-fold growth in unaudited third-quarter profits, as huge demand for home-grown processors and artificial intelligence infrastructure filters through links in the supply chain amid the country’s push for self-reliance. Shanghai-listed Yuanjie Semiconductor Technology expected its quarterly net profit to land between 403 million yuan and 453 million yuan, up 579 per cent to 660 per cent from a year earlier. The maker of laser chips for optical...

China’s AI boom, self-sufficiency push fuel earnings surge for local chip firms
Innovation

China’s AI boom, self-sufficiency push fuel earnings surge for local chip firms

Chinese chip and tech firms have flagged as much as six-fold growth in unaudited third-quarter profits, as huge demand for home-grown processors and artificial intelligence infrastructure filters through links in the supply chain amid the country’s push for self-reliance. Shanghai-listed Yuanjie Semiconductor Technology expected its quarterly net profit to land between 403 million yuan and 453 million yuan, up 579 per cent to 660 per cent from a year earlier. The maker of laser chips for optical...

Who is Nathan Chen, the Chinese teen AI prodigy being courted by Silicon Valley?
Innovation

Who is Nathan Chen, the Chinese teen AI prodigy being courted by Silicon Valley?

A 17-year-old artificial intelligence researcher formerly with Moonshot AI has announced his departure for the United States, sparking intense speculation about his next move amid heated competition for elite talent between Silicon Valley and China’s tech hubs. Nathan Chen Guangyu wrote on social media on Thursday that he had left the Beijing-based start-up after less than a year, describing his time there as “the best [year] of my life so far”. The announcement caught many industry observers by...

Who is Nathan Chen, the Chinese teen AI prodigy being courted by Silicon Valley?
Innovation

Who is Nathan Chen, the Chinese teen AI prodigy being courted by Silicon Valley?

A 17-year-old artificial intelligence researcher formerly with Moonshot AI has announced his departure for the United States, sparking intense speculation about his next move amid heated competition for elite talent between Silicon Valley and China’s tech hubs. Nathan Chen Guangyu wrote on social media on Thursday that he had left the Beijing-based start-up after less than a year, describing his time there as “the best [year] of my life so far”. The announcement caught many industry observers by...

Hong Kong vies for role in robotics boom with launch of embodied AI hub
Innovation

Hong Kong vies for role in robotics boom with launch of embodied AI hub

The Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC) opened the city’s first experimental hub for embodied artificial intelligence on Thursday with the participation of seven mainland and Hong Kong companies, including industry leaders Unitree Robotics and Galbot, as the city looks to carve out a role in the global robotics boom. Located at the HKPC Building in Kowloon Tong, the Embodied AI International Applications Hub, housed under the HKPC’s industrial AI and robotics centre, features simulated...

Hong Kong vies for role in robotics boom with launch of embodied AI hub
Innovation

Hong Kong vies for role in robotics boom with launch of embodied AI hub

The Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC) opened the city’s first experimental hub for embodied artificial intelligence on Thursday with the participation of seven mainland and Hong Kong companies, including industry leaders Unitree Robotics and Galbot, as the city looks to carve out a role in the global robotics boom. Located at the HKPC Building in Kowloon Tong, the Embodied AI International Applications Hub, housed under the HKPC’s industrial AI and robotics centre, features simulated...

Alibaba sets sights on record-breaking Singles’ Day with 1 million brands joining festival
Innovation

Alibaba sets sights on record-breaking Singles’ Day with 1 million brands joining festival

Alibaba Group Holding is gearing up for its annual Singles’ Day shopping festival on major online marketplaces Taobao and Tmall, with the company expecting a record one million global brands to take part this year. Pre-sales for the event open on Thursday, followed by the formal sale next Tuesday. The company projects more than 70 million products to feature, also a record for the festival. Created by Alibaba in 2009, Singles’ Day has grown into the world’s largest online shopping festival. Also...

How could a superintelligence take over the world? Let me count the ways
Innovation

How could a superintelligence take over the world? Let me count the ways

OpenAI recently announced perhaps its biggest mathematics breakthrough yet: it released novel results on 377 high-profile open problems. Artificial intelligence (AI) casually solved these decades-old problems as a mere by-product of training. The community of mathematicians did not universally welcome this development, with University of Connecticut professor Alvaro Lozano-Robledo commenting: “I am not sure at this point what this (hostile?) takeover of the mathematical landscape is trying to...