When China’s DeepSeek sent shock waves through the technology world early last year, it raised a confronting question for America’s tech giants, could China build cutting-edge artificial intelligence for a fraction of the cost? More than a year on DeepSeek is no longer the only strong challenger. In recent weeks, Chinese AI developers Z.ai (formerly…
Model distillation, a long-established artificial intelligence (AI) training technique, has emerged as the latest flashpoint in the growing technology rivalry between the United States and China. While the method helps developers build smaller, cheaper AI models, US companies have accused some Chinese firms of using it to extract capabilities from proprietary AI systems without permission….
Three years ago, I warned in these pages that the greatest existential threat to humanity might not emerge from a stray asteroid or a cosmic cataclysm but from uncontrolled artificial intelligence (AI). Today, the trajectory towards an AI Armageddon has not merely accelerated, it has violently careered off the rails of human oversight. The academic…
Published on 17/07/2026 – 12:03 GMT+2 China’s President Xi Jinping used a major AI summit on Friday to push back against US technology restrictions, calling for artificial intelligence to be developed and governed as a global effort rather than dominated by any single country. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Speaking in Shanghai, Xi warned against what he called…
Mira Murati, former Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI, now CEO of Thinking Machines, speaks during The Wall Street Journal’s WSJ Tech Live Conference in Laguna Beach, California on October 17, 2023. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images Thinking Machines Lab released its…
Setting a timer to take a short break after every 25 minutes of study, compiling a “mistakes booklet” to learn from past errors and using artificial intelligence to boost English skills are among the strategies used by top scorers in this year’s university entrance exam in Hong Kong. However, some of the 24 high achievers…
In the world of artificial intelligence, a token is the smallest unit of information processed by an AI model. When a user asks ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Gemini, or Doubao a question, the system does not read sentences like a human. It breaks words down to tiny pieces called tokens. These are the building blocks that allow…
There are many disconnects in financial markets. One of them is Japan’s benchmark 10-year bond yield, which currently stands at just 2.7 per cent despite the country’s large public debt burden – more than 240 per cent of economic output. Although Japanese bond yields have risen sharply in the past three years, the 10-year yield…
Assets and wealth under management in Hong Kong surged to a record high last year as global investors returned to Chinese assets, underscoring the city’s edge over Switzerland as a wealth hub. Financial firms in Hong Kong managed HK$42.2 trillion (US$5.38 trillion) worth of assets last year, a 20 per cent increase from the previous…
The recent news about China developing the world’s fastest supercomputer will trigger the predictable debate about whether Beijing has finally overtaken the US in advanced computing. The answer, at least for now, is no. The new LineShine system that topped the latest TOP500 ranking is not the world’s most powerful machine for artificial intelligence (AI)…