Tesla has agreed a deal to integrate Chinese fintech giant Ant Group’s Alipay digital payment software into its vehicles in China, as Elon Musk’s firm steps up efforts to offer localised smart features amid intense competition in the Chinese market. The agreement, signed on Tuesday, will see Tesla roll out an Alipay-powered smart parking service across its Chinese fleet, according to the fintech firm. Neither side revealed a launch date or which car models would receive the feature, though...

The US government’s latest ban on Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek could have a chilling effect on the wider American business community and deter companies from adopting low-cost Chinese AI models, industry experts say. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ordered federal civilian agencies to remove DeepSeek products and third-party services built on the Chinese AI model from their IT systems, according to a directive signed in July and published on Monday. The...

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) finance chiefs reached a consensus on economic policy coordination and cooperation on financing technology and artificial intelligence at a landmark two-day gathering in Hong Kong, according to China’s finance minister. Lan Foan said the outcomes achieved during the Apec Finance Ministers’ Meeting would help shape discussions at the leaders’ summit in Shenzhen next month. “China will work with all member economies to implement the important consensus...

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is set to take the stage in Berlin on Wednesday, as the world’s most valuable company faces heightened investor scrutiny over whether the massive artificial intelligence spending boom – the engine behind the chipmaker’s meteoric growth – can deliver long-term returns. The conference agenda focuses on sovereign AI, industrial automation and operational infrastructure – key sectors where Nvidia hopes to drive demand beyond the handful of US tech giants currently dominating...

Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek has fully open-sourced an internally developed framework designed to run AI models efficiently, as a senior researcher at the company described the growing divide between open-source and closed-source AI as a battle between “light and darkness”. The company on Tuesday released DeepInfer, an inference framework tailored to support its DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model on both Nvidia’s SM100 Blackwell graphics processing units (GPUs) and Huawei...

The growing popularity of Chinese artificial intelligence models has emerged as a key risk factor for Anthropic ahead of its blockbuster initial public offering, according to US research firm Hedgeye Risk Management. “It’s all about Chinese competition when analysing Anthropic,” said Felix Wang, managing director and global tech sector head at Hedgeye. “Many of my clients are asking the same question.” The assessment comes as Anthropic faces renewed investor jitters over whether its massive AI...

Just days after announcing his departure from Moonshot AI, teen Chinese artificial intelligence prodigy Nathan Chen Guangyu seems to have found his next destination. On Tuesday, Arfur Grok, a widely-watched anonymous social media account that tracks AI talent movements in the US, posted that the former Moonshot AI researcher was joining Discovery Loop, an AI start-up founded by four former Google senior researchers including former chief scientist Jeff Dean. Launched just two months ago, the...

China has set up a new state-owned enterprise dedicated to managing the country’s massive data resources, a significant move designed to turbocharge the nation’s artificial intelligence industry and bolster its digital economy. The National Data Group Co – based in China’s “city of the future”, Xiongan New Area in northern Hebei province – is tasked with “developing and utilising data resources, unlocking the value of data elements, serving AI development and fostering a data industry...

Yuki Chen, a prolific Chinese cybersecurity researcher, has joined leading Chinese artificial intelligence model company Z.ai as the country’s AI sector grapples with the technology’s growing impact on global cyberspace. Chen’s appointment comes amid growing concern over AI-assisted cyberattacks and autonomous agents acting beyond their instructions, including recent cases involving Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings as well as US start-ups OpenAI and Anthropic. “New journey, new mission!” Chen...

Alibaba Group Holding’s research arm, Damo Academy, has seen more than 6 billion chips shipped based on its XuanTie RISC-V architecture, marking a milestone as the tech giant doubles down on the open standard in artificial intelligence and automotive systems. Meng Jianyi, chief scientist at Damo Academy, announced the figure on Monday at the annual RISC-V Summit China in Shenzhen. The achievement comes as Chinese companies seek to play a greater role in the global RISC-V ecosystem, an...