DeepSeek is committed to open-source artificial intelligence to accelerate the arrival of artificial general intelligence (AGI), even if it heightens safety risks, a company engineer says, defying growing safety concerns from the US and scrutiny in China over whether the strategy poses national security risks. Speaking on Tuesday on an AI panel at the World Internet Conference (WIC) in Wuzhen, DeepSeek engineer Gao Xi said open-source development promoted shared innovations and technical...

Shanghai-listed Wingtech Technology has rejected a restructuring proposal under which it would lose control of Dutch chipmaker Nexperia’s assets outside China, condemning the plan as an “expropriation” driven by discrimination. The stand-off deepens a year-long dispute between Wingtech and Dutch authorities, as the company faces an impending delisting deadline at home, while Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten prepares for an official visit to Beijing in the spring. In a statement on Tuesday,...

Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings has rolled out its latest flagship artificial intelligence model, Hy4, seeking to challenge top open-weight rivals with enhanced agentic capabilities built to power its enterprise software ecosystem. Released on Wednesday, the large language model (LLM) introduced visual understanding for the first time. Hy4 could process images, analyse complex charts and conduct visual mathematical reasoning, according to the Shenzhen-based company. Tencent said the release...

For autonomous vehicles, the hardest lessons to learn are the ones that can test the skills of even the most experienced human drivers: an errant cyclist darting through a red light, or an animal bolting into oncoming traffic from behind a corner. The Chinese tech giant Baidu has developed a new AI-driven simulator to prepare its Apollo robotaxis for just such rare but high-stakes road hazards, as the firm looks to gain an edge in the fast-growing self-driving taxi market. The system, Apollo...

US artificial intelligence giant Anthropic’s initial public offering prospectus has exposed a vast profitability gap between it and rivals Z.ai and MiniMax, highlighting the challenges facing China’s AI model developers in turning technological advances into sustainable businesses. The Claude developer’s filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week revealed a significant financial advantage over its most direct Chinese counterparts, despite the latter’s continued...

Open source is the only viable path to creating a sustainable artificial intelligence industry, Alibaba Group Holding chairman Joe Tsai said on Tuesday, as the Chinese technology giant doubles down on its open-source AI strategy. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the annual World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, Tsai pointed to a growing convergence around open ecosystems among domestic tech companies, as surging AI demand rubs up against persistent...

Alan Macfarlane, a British anthropologist, historian and Emeritus Professor at the University of Cambridge, known as “Grandpa Cute” in China, answered questions at an SCMP Plus exclusive in-person event in Hong Kong on October 26.

China’s “Lipstick King” has traded make-up swatches for artificial intelligence. Top live-streamer Li Jiaqi on Monday evening teamed up with an executive from Alibaba Group Holding to pitch AI subscriptions, selling nearly 100,000 monthly packages in just 30 minutes, according to data provided by the e-commerce giant. The broadcast on Taobao and Tmall – Alibaba’s largest domestic online marketplace – marked the first time generative AI products have taken centre stage during the annual Singles’...

Hong Kong’s plan to start an interbank tokenised gold transaction project marks a crucial step in its quest to make itself a key global hub for the precious metal, according to analysts. The city planned to launch a gold token representing a standard 400-ounce gold bar, referencing HAU, Hong Kong’s ticker for gold prices launched earlier this year, said Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui Ching-yu during the annual Fintech Week event on Monday. He said the effort...

Empyrean Technology, China’s top provider of electronic design automation (EDA) tools, plans to acquire a majority stake in a domestic start-up, reinforcing Beijing’s drive for tech self-sufficiency and bolstering support for Huawei Technologies’ semiconductor ambitions. The Beijing-based firm said in a Shenzhen Stock Exchange filing on Sunday that it would acquire a 50.38 per cent stake in Easy-Logic Technology for 218.8 million yuan (US$33 million). Once completed, the start-up would be...