eChina.news

Innovation

TSMC pledges extra US$100 billion for Arizona fab expansion amid soaring AI chip demand

Riding on the AI boom, the Taiwanese chipmaker’s net income jumped 77 per cent to NT$706.6 billion (US$22 billion) in the second quarter TSMC chairman CC Wei said the firm planned to proceed “as fast as possible” with the new Arizona investment but declined to provide a timeline, noting that progress would “depend on the market situation and our customers’ demand”. The additional investment was for “2-nanometre and below technologies, as well as advanced packaging fabs to support the strong multi-year demand from our leading US customers”, Wei said at the firm’s earnings conference on Thursday, after reporting record-high profits for the second quarter. The US$100 billion is on top of the US$165 billion the company pledged for its Arizona complex in March 2025. At the time, TSMC boosted its original commitment of US$65 billion to US$165 billion, pledging to build three more fabrication plants, alongside two advanced packaging facilities and a research and development centre in Phoenix.

July 16, 2026

Innovation

As US AI costs soar, global businesses pivot to China’s low-cost, open-weight models

A sharp narrowing of the performance gap is prompting some developers to shift from costly American giants to budget-friendly Chinese alternatives Since mid-June, the daily token volume of Zhipu’s GLM-5.2, which operates at about one-fifth the cost of Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.8, had surged 50-fold on Vercel, the San Francisco-based cloud platform for AI web development reported on Tuesday. Open-weight models accounted for 29 per cent of token volume on its AI Gateway platform, nearly tripling their share since April, according to Vercel. The rise of these cost-efficient powerhouses marks a growing shift in how companies worldwide source artificial intelligence. While proprietary, closed-source models require premium cloud subscriptions and charge by the token – the basic unit of data processed by an AI – open-weight models allow companies to download code for free and run it on local hardware. The fast-improving capabilities of these free-to-download models have forced businesses to re-evaluate their tech spending. Until recently, enterprises chose to absorb the high cost of premium American models because open alternatives lagged too far behind – a gap that is narrowing fast.

July 16, 2026

Innovation

China completes world’s first commercial brain-computer interface implant

Coin-sized implant marks a breakthrough in neurotechnology, underscoring China’s bid to lead the global race against Elon Musk’s Neuralink Chinese surgeons implanted a coin-sized brain chip on a patient with impaired hand mobility linked to a spinal cord injury from a car accident 10 years ago, according to a statement from the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality on Wednesday. The procedure, performed on Monday at Huashan Hospital, captured stable, high-quality epidural brain signals, with the patient recovering and vital signs remaining stable. Developed by local start-up Neuracle Medical Technology, the NEO device assists hand motion. It is placed on the brain’s outer surface without penetrating tissue, reading neural signals and translating them into hand movements. It became the world’s first commercially prescribed BCI after winning approval from China’s National Medical Products Administration on March 13, making it available as a commercial product rather than confined to laboratories and clinical trials. Since clearance, NEO had rolled out production, hospital introductions, patient screening and inclusion in local commercial health insurance within four months, according to the statement.

July 15, 2026

Innovation

As AI learns to hide, science must learn to trust differently

The newest arms race in artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer about writing better text. It is about making AI-generated writing appear indistinguishable from human work. A recently released academic “humaniser” tool promises to remove stylistic clues that reveal AI-generated manuscripts, allowing research papers and grant proposals to read more like they were written by humans. Its developer describes it as an editing aid rather than a deception tool, but many scientists fear it could...

July 15, 2026

Innovation

China approves Apple Intelligence for iPhones, with Alibaba, Baidu emerging as partners

After a two-year delay, the iPhone maker is cleared to deploy AI tools on its smartphones by tapping Alibaba and Baidu’s capabilities The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the country’s internet watchdog, published a notice on Wednesday confirming the licence for Apple Intelligence – the AI feature used to summarise emails, draft reports, edit images and perform other tasks. It was granted alongside six other smartphone-based AI services, including those for Samsung and Huawei Technologies. A Baidu representative also told the SCMP on Wednesday that it was working with Apple to develop AI features for Apple Intelligence in China. The licence applied only to iPhone devices, according to the official notice, which did not specify whether other Apple devices sold in China – such as iPad tablets and Mac computers – would also be allowed to deploy Apple Intelligence. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Apple Intelligence and Samsung’s Galaxy AI were the only foreign services to be approved. The five other recipients – Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and ZTE – are all local smartphone vendors. ByteDance is a partner of ZTE’s AI service.

July 15, 2026

Innovation

Hong Kong steps up to US crypto fund challenge with tokenised fund approval

As the city looks to challenge the US as a global crypto hub, Baillie Gifford says the SFC has approved its blockchain-based tokenised fund The British fund manager said on Wednesday it had received approval from the Securities and Futures Commission to launch the Baillie Gifford Enhanced Yield Fund (BAGEY) – an actively managed portfolio of short-duration government and corporate bonds. However, the SFC told the South China Morning Post that it would not offer comment on individual cases. Tokenisation turns traditional investment products into blockchain-based digital tokens that represent their ownership. Proponents of the technology tout its benefits including 24/7 instant settlement and wider investor access through fractional ownership. Most tokenised funds currently use a so-called “digital twin” model, which records legal ownership in a traditional ledger and mirrors the holdings on a blockchain. This means the tokens do not provide investors with direct exposure to the underlying assets. In contrast, “digitally native” tokenised funds such as BAGEY use the public blockchain as the official record of ownership, giving token holders full legal rights to the underlying assets.

July 15, 2026

Innovation

China memory giant CXMT valued at US$85 billion in record Shanghai IPO

Chinese DRAM maker is set to raise 57.9 billion yuan (US$8.5 billion), nearly twice the amount earmarked for its investment projects China’s leading memory chipmaker, ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), has priced its Shanghai initial public offering at 8.66 yuan (US$1.28) apiece, positioning the company for the largest listing by a Chinese semiconductor company on a mainland bourse. The firm, based in Hefei, Anhui province, is expected to raise gross proceeds of 57.9 billion yuan (US$8.5 billion) from the sale of nearly 6.7 billion shares, according to an offering announcement released on Tuesday. The shares represent 10 per cent of the company’s enlarged capital, giving CXMT an implied valuation of 579 billion yuan (US$85.2 billion) upon listing on Shanghai’s Star Market. If a 15 per cent overallotment option is fully exercised, the offering could expand to 7.7 billion shares and raise up to 66.6 billion yuan (US$9.83 billion). Online and offline subscriptions will take place on Thursday, but CXMT has not yet announced a trading debut date.

July 15, 2026

Innovation

China’s StepFun claims it has unveiled the world’s first AI smartphone

Tencent-backed firm launches the AI-native StepX Neo smartphone, challenging US tech giants amid Apple-OpenAI legal clashes Unlike traditional smartphones that required users to manually open individual apps, the device was built around AI agents, according to StepFun. The device could interpret user requests, coordinate across multiple services, and execute complex tasks autonomously, the company added. The smartphone features Amoo, a new personal AI assistant native to Step AOS. The launch highlights a growing global push by AI firms to control the entire product stack, spanning foundation models, operating systems and hardware.

July 14, 2026

Innovation

Alibaba to team up with Honor in race to build AI agentic devices

Huawei spin-off Honor has been developing what it calls a ‘next-generation terminal operating system’, known as Agentic OS Alibaba Group Holding and Honor are set to deepen their tie-up over an operating system for AI-powered devices, as competition in the nascent “AI phone” genre gains momentum in China. Shenzhen-based Honor, spun off from Huawei Technologies in 2020, will host a sub-forum at WAIC on Saturday titled “From digital screens to embodied intelligence”, CEO Li Jian said in a post on social media platform Weibo on Tuesday. High-profile speakers will include Xu Zhuhong, head of multimodal interaction at Alibaba’s Token Foundry unit; Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired; Xu Hao, head of research and development for Qualcomm China; and Liu Jingkang, founder of action-camera maker Insta360. Alibaba and Honor did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

July 14, 2026

Innovation

Global AI boom sees China’s chip exports nearly double in first half of year

Exports of automatic data processing machines and parts jumped more than 41 per cent to top US$138 billion China’s chip exports nearly doubled in the first half of the year, customs data shows, as a global AI boom cemented computing hardware’s place as a key economic growth engine. In the first six months of 2026, China exported 179.44 billion integrated circuits (ICs) worth a total of US$177.28 billion – up more than 96 per cent year on year – according to data released by the General Administration of Customs on Tuesday. The surge in IC exports was one of the key drivers behind China’s double-digit export growth in the first half of the year, alongside robust overseas demand for industrial robots and other hi-tech products, underscoring the country’s shift towards technology-led export growth despite an increasingly challenging global trade environment. “The export growth was fundamentally driven by precisely matching ‘Made in China’ [products] with diverse global demand,” Wang Jun, a vice-minister of customs, said at a news briefing on Tuesday.

July 14, 2026

Innovation

Chinese AI giants, start-ups ready for the agentic web era

The agentic web era has arrived, and Chinese companies are going all in. Humans were overtaken last month by artificial intelligence (AI) agents and AI bots as the majority users of the internet, data from global network company Cloudflare shows. By early July, agents and bots accounted for more than 60 per cent of web traffic. Even Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince expressed surprise in a post on X, having initially forecast AI agent-driven web use would pass the 50 per cent mark only in late 2027....

July 14, 2026

Innovation

Chinese AI labs to challenge Thinking Machines Lab with new industry focus

AI labs Yoolee and InfiX.ai say they aim to rival US start-up with industry-specific AI solutions, reduced costs and enhanced privacy Two former Chinese AI lab leaders said they aim to challenge Thinking Machines Lab, a US start-up founded by ex-OpenAI executive Mira Murati, and focus on building industry-specific artificial intelligence solutions and models following their exit from the fierce frontier AI race. Yoolee AI, established last year with backing from venture capital firms including Lanchi Ventures, aimed to help companies build self-evolving AI agents capable of performing tasks that were currently too costly for human workers to do, according to Zhang. Such AI agents, ranging from personal healthcare specialists to travel planners, could drive new revenue streams for businesses in these sectors, he said. Zhang, who joined Beijing-based Zhipu as chief operating officer in 2023 before departing last year, described his new start-up as a combination of Thinking Machines Lab and Palantir, the latter a US data software giant that helps governments and large enterprises manage their AI systems.

July 14, 2026