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AI: Industry Trends

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AI: Industry Trends
Explore cutting-edge AI developments in China that are transforming various industries and reshaping the future.
China’s 996 work culture – a schedule of 9am-9pm, six days a week – has become a hot topic for the next generation of tech founders in the United States. However, such military-style management is not for everyone. Photo: Shutterstock
US-China relations

China’s extreme 996 work schedule meets US tech’s hustle culture

Why advocates believe 996, the controversial 9am to 9pm, six-day-a-week culture popularised in China, can give American firms decisive edge.

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Artificial intelligence

The next interface race: how AI is bringing smart glasses into focus

US-China trade war

Washington offers US$200 million to boost US smartphone industry in Indo-Pacific

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US-China relations

Opinion | US and China can again find common ground – in AI’s risks

If Beijing and Washington could meet in 1972 to manage a shared threat, today’s leaders can cooperate to shape the rules of AI.

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People use augmented reality headsets during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference at the Shanghai World Expo and Convention Center in Shanghai on July 28, 2025. Photo: AFP / Getty Images / TNS
US-China relations

Sudden Xi-Trump call, secret nuclear testing claims: 7 US-China relations reads

From China’s grip on minerals to the US’ Apec plans, here are highlights from our overseas correspondents in the first half of February 2026.

Artificial intelligence

Global AI race heats up as Chinese tech giant releases new model

With multimodal capabilities and open weights, Qwen-3.5 signals Alibaba’s ambition to anchor the next phase of global AI deployment.

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Artificial intelligence

Humanoids go mainstream as China’s robotics champions appear at CCTV spectacle

ByteDance, Unitree, RedNote, Bilibili and Kuaishou among the firms involved in the unparalleled nationwide marketing opportunity.

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Bot the star of the show: a dancing robot delights during China Central Television’s Spring Festival Photo: CCTV
US-China relations

How AI, quantum computing could help US overcome China’s rare earths advantage

Technologies for synthesising substitutes or alloys could cut time required to secure critical materials to just a few years.

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Artificial intelligence

ByteDance ‘strengthening safeguards’ after Seedance AI video controversy

Pledge comes after Hollywood, governments speak out against tool amid deluge of video clips featuring celebrities, copyrighted characters.

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Artificial intelligence

Why cooling is the new chips: China pivots to AI’s heat challenge

Chinese manufacturers are moving aggressively into liquid-cooling technologies as hyperscalers expand data-centre infrastructure.

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An employee conducts maintenance in a server room of the China Mobile Hohhot Data Centre in Hohhot in Inner Mongolia. Photo: Xinhua
Artificial intelligence

Beijing warns tech giants to curb ‘involution’ amid AI giveaway war

Companies should ‘uphold a fair and competitive’ environment to ‘foster innovation and healthy development’, regulator says.

An advertisement for ByteDance’s cloud and AI service platform Volcano Engine and chatbot Doubao hangs in Beijing Capital International airport in Beijing on February 5, 2026. Photo: AFP
Artificial intelligence

Unitree CEO sees embodied intelligence overtaking the internet’s impact

Unitree founder says the shift from screen-based AI to real-world machines could unlock a far larger economic wave than today’s tech boom.

Artificial intelligence

China’s Lenovo warns of ‘prolonged’ memory crunch, looks to AI for rebound

Top PC maker posts a 21 per cent profit drop amid chip squeeze, but bets on AI-powered devices to sustain growth amid industry upheaval.

Artificial intelligence

Alibaba’s Qwen tops 120 million orders in 6 days amid China’s AI shopping battle

Campaign has sparked a behavioural shift towards AI-powered shopping, which Alibaba says is becoming a more popular lifestyle choice.

The number of orders signals growing acceptance of AI-powered shopping. Photo: Getty
Artificial intelligence

China’s Zhipu AI launches new major model GLM-5 in challenge to its rivals

The GLM-5 represents a shift in AI development from ‘vibe coding’ to ‘agentic engineering’ to generate an enhanced performance.

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Zhipu AI, known internationally as Z.ai, says that the new GLM-5 represents a significant shift in AI development. Photo: Shutterstock
Artificial intelligence

DeepSeek boosts AI model with 10-fold token addition as Zhipu AI unveils GLM-5

The upgrade will allow DeepSeek’s AI model to remember and process more information in a single conversation or task.

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Artificial intelligence

Opinion | China is leading in holistic AI development. Can the US catch up?

The country that will emerge victorious may not have the best models, but rather the applications which best meet people’s everyday needs.

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Artificial intelligence

Alibaba unveils RynnBrain, an embodied AI model that gives robots a ‘brain’

The model, which was unveiled by Alibaba’s Damo Academy, matched leading embodied models from Google and Nvidia.

Alibaba and its fintech affiliate Ant Group are launching their own robotics models in a bid to dominate the next frontier of technology. Photo: AP
Robotics

Opinion | For clues to China’s next overcapacity cycle, watch the Spring Festival Gala

AI robots taking centre stage at the coming Spring Festival Gala – now a national tech showcase – will signal official endorsement and likely trigger herd investment.

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Artificial intelligence

Indonesia telco chief warns of digital colonisation, backs China open-source AI

Indonesian executives stress that localisation and sovereignty are key to AI adoption in the fast-growing Southeast Asian market.

Artificial intelligence

China’s ByteDance, Alibaba unveil AI image tools to rival Google’s popular Nano Banana

The tech giants’ new image models lower the barrier for individual users or businesses to produce professional-looking images.

ByteDance says its new model’s stronger reasoning ability enables it to better understand and follow human text prompts to generate the desired images. Photo: Handout
Artificial intelligence

ByteDance’s new model sparks stock rally as China’s AI video battle escalates

Seedance 2.0 thrills early adopters with cinematic realism and fuels debate over AI’s role in filmmaking and content creation.

A Seedance 2.0 video capture. Seedance 2.0 delivers enhanced lifelike generations that blur the boundary between AI content and reality, according to early adopters. Photo: Handout
US-China relations

US and China defence sectors emerge as key battlegrounds in the race for AI

As both military powers vie to integrate innovative technology first, the race is on to develop and fast-track the latest advancements.

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Alibaba

From chatbots to replays: Alibaba rolls out AI suite for 2026 Winter Olympics

Alibaba Cloud has unveiled AI assistants for the 2026 Winter Olympics, integrating its Qwen model into Games operations.

Tencent

Tencent’s giveaway campaign for AI chatbot Yuanbao blocked – by WeChat

Units clash as super app blocks links from AI chatbot’s US$144 million promotion for ‘impacting user experience and causing harassment’.

A post from WeChat said user complaints prompted it to block links from the chatbot’s campaign. Photo: Shutterstock
Artificial intelligence

Chinese AI firms defend safety practices, push back on Western criticism

Chinese developers stress cultural context in AI safety, as domestic models narrow the gap with their US rivals to the closest level yet.

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Concerns about the risks of Chinese AI models held back some global users from adopting them, with DeepSeek banned or restricted in more than 10 countries. Photo: Shutterstock
Fintech

HKMA launches quantum readiness and cybersecurity projects for banks in AI era

Banking regulator sets fintech road map with quantum index and measures to boost security, data quality and skills.

Artificial intelligence

Funding surge powers Chinese robotics firms as focus shifts to humanoid ‘brains’

State-backed funds, Big Tech drive fresh capital into robotics companies, betting on operating systems that underpin humanoid intelligence.

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