In China this month, people have been lining up on streets to install an AI programme on their computers. Some had travelled from other cities. Others had waited for hours for engineers to set it up for them. There were even “birth certificates” given out upon installation. The programme is OpenClaw. Its logo is a…
The team proposed Pointer-CAD, a framework built on Alibaba Group Holding’s Qwen 2.5 model, which helps designers select edges or faces of a 3D object, increasing the accuracy and efficiency in computer-aided design (CAD), a tool widely used in engineering, manufacturing and architecture. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post. The new method could “effectively…
ByteDance’s Doubao AI chatbot (Source: Shutterstock) ByteDance’s AI chatbot Doubao drew more than 100 million daily active users (DAU) during China’s Lunar New Year holiday, emerging as the clear winner in a fierce user-acquisition battle among the country’s biggest tech firms, according to private survey data. Doubao surpassed 100 million DAUs on February 16, roughly…
China’s Spring Festival has emerged as a high-stakes arena for artificial intelligence and robotics companies, with tech giants Tencent Holdings and Baidu committing a combined 1.5 billion yuan (US$215 million) to their digital red packet campaigns. Chinese social media and gaming giant Tencent announced on Sunday that its AI chatbot app Yuanbao would give away…
A new action plan released by the Qianhai authorities in Shenzhen aims to strengthen its position as a “key partner” to Hong Kong rather than a competitor, further bolstering the city’s status as a global hub for finance, trade and talent. The 2026 action plan, released recently by authorities, is set to deepen cooperation between…
Specialised data sets can make AI services more helpful to vulnerable users who have become progressively reliant on them for emotional support and health assistance, according to Lu Shiyu, a senior researcher at Tencent Research Institute (TRI). Since 2024, Lu’s team at TRI – the public strategy research unit of Shenzhen-based Tencent – has been…
“Biotechnology is a high-risk field like a ‘molecular casino’,” said founder Alex Zhavoronkov. “Even with artificial intelligence, you can lose 90 per cent of the time.” The 11-year-old company was training and testing an AI-powered drug-discovery tool, Pharma.AI, to “enable faster, cheaper and more successful drug discovery with higher novelty and confidence”, he said. Zhavoronkov…
Mannings, one of Hong Kong’s largest health and beauty chains, will cease all retail operations in mainland China, both online and offline, as it adjusts its strategy in the highly competitive market. In a letter to its members, Mannings China said “its physical stores on the mainland will close permanently after January 15, 2026”. Its…
Chinese fintech giant Ant Group has pressed ahead with its strategic move into the fast-growing healthcare sector with a major upgrade to its artificial intelligence health app AQ, positioning the platform to work like a fitness companion or a family doctor. The new features included integration of records from smart devices made by Apple, Huawei…
TH International (NASDAQ: THCH) launched an eco-friendly drinking straw on December 3, 2025, developed with Tencent’s CarbonXmade program and Suzhou Kunshen using Carbon Capture Utilization (CCU) to convert industrial CO₂ into PPC-TPU biodegradable material. The straw debuts in stores across Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen and was showcased…