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China’s first‑tier new home prices flat in July, ending 4‑month rebound Top cities in China see flat readings last month, ending a streak of improvement in the struggling housing market New home prices in China’s four first-tier cities were flat on average in July from June, brin

Job losses mount in German automotive sector as challenge from China intensifies Automotive industry shed more than 40,000 jobs – 5.8 per cent of its workforce – in first half of year, statistical office says Germany’s automotive industry shed 42,300 jobs in the year to the end o

China’s domestic demand further weakens in July, analysts bet on extra stimulus Retail sales, a key consumption metric, trailed a 1.3 per cent growth forecast, while fixed-asset investment also weakened China’s economic imbalances continued to deepen in July, as sluggish retail s

AI chipmaker Biren projects up to 22-fold revenue surge amid China’s hi-tech boom Massive financial gains across domestic chipmakers underscore how the push for self-sufficiency is reshaping demand for home-grown hardware Chinese artificial intelligence chipmaker Biren Technology

Hong Kong firm bets on Chinese open-weight models to rival CoreWeave ‘Neo-cloud’ provider Antimatter is helping businesses shift away from the US’ frontier AI models, promising lower costs and greater data sovereignty Now, a new Hong Kong-based company aims to turn that trend int

I gave Tencent’s WeChat AI agent control for 24 hours: where it excelled – and stumbled The new Xiaowei agent promises hands-free control across WeChat’s vast digital ecosystem. I set out to see whether it delivers In its latest earnings results announced on Wednesday, Tencent hi

Why are some Chinese students choosing Spain despite its tough job market? Relatively low tuition rates and a more relaxed lifestyle appeal to young adults, while scarce work, high rents and expanding Chinese investment shape their prospects For Daisy Chen, a graduate of one of C

Home province of DeepSeek, Moonshot founders seeks to retain, attract future AI talent After losing top founders in artificial intelligence to rivals, the southern province aims to better attract, retain talent After graduating from Tsinghua and earning his PhD at Carnegie Mellon

Advertisement China’s high-spending counties emerge as bright spot as domestic demand remains weak Lower costs, lighter debt and return-migrant capital are boosting household purchasing power in China’s smaller cities 3-MIN READ3-MIN Listen He Huifengin Guangdong Before Sam’s Cl

Luxury home sales rebound in mainland China but overall market recovery unlikely: analysts Data from a real estate consultancy shows 38 per cent rise in sales of homes priced between 30 million and 50 million yuan in first half Sales of luxury homes in mainland China’s top cities

Advertisement Macroscope Global leaders must wake up to threat of unbridled AI adoption Much like their drowsiness on climate change, world leaders have been lulled to sleep by promises of AI’s benefits to efficiency and profits 3-MIN READ3-MIN Listen Anthony Rowley is a veteran

Karaoke in the car? China’s new wave of gadget-laden electric vehicles China’s carmakers are competing to turn their vehicles into digital entertainment hubs, offering everything from film projectors to VR features A new wave of Chinese-developed EVs is hitting the market equippe

South China tech hub’s wet summer puts damper on small business profits Shenzhen’s wettest July in more than three decades saw foot traffic plummet and also caused severe disruption to airline schedules Last month’s deluge was bad news for Yuan Zhang, who runs a small breakfast s

For China, Trump’s new drone tariffs threaten to deepen trade rift with US Disrupted supply chains could complicate efforts of Chinese firms to expand globally in the fast-growing drone industry, while raising costs for American buyers Tariffs of up to 100 per cent that Washingto

Launch of DeepSeek’s Harness marks its strategic pivot towards autonomous agentic AI With the launch of Harness, China’s DeepSeek continues to build the foundational digital scaffolding for autonomous AI agents The release on Thursday marks a strategic pivot as DeepSeek moves to

Zhipu launches flagship model GLM-5.3 as China seeks Mythos-level edge in cyber defence Company says GLM-5.3 outperformed leading US systems in cybersecurity tests, beating Anthropic’s Mythos 5 and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 on CyberGym Chinese artificial intelligence firm Zhipu, also know

China’s richest province taps Alibaba to power its AI and chip push Guangdong province deepens ties with China tech giant to boost digital innovation by focusing on AI, semiconductors and smart services Under a strategic cooperation framework agreement signed on Thursday in Guang

SMIC weighs more capacity as AI-related chip demand exceeds forecasts China’s largest foundry says shortages are spreading to mature-node chips, with some AI-driven demand visible through the end of 2027 Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) is actively loo

Chinese doctor stuns maths world by cracking decades-old problem using ChatGPT Jin Shanmu, a Beijing-based neurosurgeon, was trying to solve a problem related to brain ultrasounds. Instead, he made mathematical history When Beijing-based neurosurgeon Jin Shanmu pulled up a chair

Shifting tides in global maritime sector float Chinese shipyard’s outlook Formerly moribund facility on Yangtze River fills order book as shipowners favour small and medium-sized container vessels A shipyard in China that halted construction of new vessels eight years ago is stag

Zhu Rongji’s legacy: how the late premier reshaped state firms, Pudong and China’s economy Remembered as a candid, decisive leader, the former Chinese premier championed entrepreneurship, welcomed foreign expertise and brought urgency to economic policymaking Turn-of-the-century

DeepSeek’s updated V4 Pro AI model struggles on benchmarks, shines in cybersecurity Chinese AI start-up’s model impresses in niche areas like cybersecurity but leaves some developers disappointed in its overall capabilities Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek has qu

China’s marriages fell 7.5% in the first half of 2026. What does it spell for the economy? Fewer weddings, rising divorces and plunging birth rates risk exacerbating the fallout from a rapidly ageing population China’s marriage registrations fell 7.5 per cent year on year in the

Fearing deflated China demand, US soybean growers pivot to new buyers and biofuel With Chinese imports low according to a trade association, farmers are compensating by finding new markets and selling to biofuel makers But just slightly more than 12 million tonnes of last year’s

Little surprise Beijing doesn’t want Western advice for its economy The lack of forceful stimulus is not policy paralysis, as foreigners assume – China simply operates on a different set of priorities When a patient repeatedly refuses the same medicine, there are usually three po

From solar to AI: why China may be entering its ‘Go Global 3.0’ era As a new wave of Chinese firms captures global demand for hi-tech goods, a new report highlights a strategic shift towards AI hardware and robotics Chinese corporate expansion overseas is shifting from solar equi

Why China’s traders, e-commerce merchants feel boxed in by new EU packaging rules As trade tensions rise, Brussels has implemented new rules aimed at reducing packaging waste, with the threat of fines and bans for non-compliance On Wednesday, the European Union’s Packaging and Pa

Tencent capex jumps 176% on AI push as revenue beats estimates The firm’s second-quarter revenue surpassed market projections at US$30.4 billion, but the surge in AI spending led to a large negative free cash flow Tencent Holdings nearly tripled its capital spending in the second

China’s top court highlights first Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law ruling amid global tensions Supreme People’s Court says judgment was first to ‘explicitly establish the mandatory application’ of five-year-old law The case, heard by the Shanghai Maritime Court, centred on a dispute t

China’s EV sales slide again amid fading incentives, weak demand and persistent price war A seven-month domestic downturn contrasts with a 147.8 per cent jump in overseas shipments, highlighting a widening gap between domestic and export markets Deliveries of electric vehicles (E

Why does SK Hynix want to sell its chip facility in southwest China? The South Korean chipmaker wants to pivot towards the high-margin AI memory sector, but analysts warn any sale would face valuation hurdles South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix’s potential deal to offload a packaging

China has always had a legal framework for taxation. Why is it now increasing enforcement? Declining fiscal revenue is prompting tax authorities to scrutinize offshore trusts and equity gains These shifts in tax enforcement stem from multiple factors, and they mirror a notable sh

Alibaba tests paid AI appetite with US$30 annual office-assistant subscription The e-commerce giant launches paid tiers for its office assistant in the Qwen app as costs for artificial intelligence mount Alibaba Group Holding is asking app users to open their wallets for its arti

Alibaba says modular design delivers AI data centres in 100 days at 10% lower cost With CUBE 5.0, Alibaba Cloud expects to more than double modular data centre delivery efficiency this year amid AI boom, report says Using CUBE 5.0, Alibaba Cloud had slashed the delivery time for

Nio stalls in Germany as its car registrations fall 93.6% in July In contrast to its Chinese peers, Nio is struggling in Europe’s largest car market, registering just three cars last month and 18 this year Chinese carmakers are gaining ground in Germany, Europe’s biggest car mark

China’s economic problems have been diagnosed. Will policymakers act? What is missing is the willingness to redirect resources away from growth engines of the past and directly support Chinese households China’s real issue, he argued, was not divergence between a rising line and

China’s central bank targets global yuan in first solo 5-year plan in at least a decade The strategy signals Beijing’s push to build a ‘strong central bank’ capable of driving its financial powerhouse ambitions, analyst says China’s central bank has set out its strategic prioriti

Meta to challenge China’s open-weight AI dominance amid US regulatory fears Meta’s renewed push into open-source models aims to attract US businesses wary of the regulatory risks associated with adopting Chinese AI The US tech giant on Monday launched Muse Glimmer, a 30-billion-p

Claims state subsidies caused China’s industrial overcapacity a deliberate smear: scholar In People’s Daily commentary piece, Cui Fan says ‘reasonable industrial subsidies … are a globally recognised and legitimate policy tool’ Western narratives alleging state subsidies caused C

China’s aviation regulator steps up safety communication with foreign carriers The Civil Aviation Administration of China, following some operational changes, has increased its aircraft checks as an additional safety measure An aviation analyst said the move was made in light of

In FocusChina is building nuclear reactors faster than the West. Can it keep up the pace? While delays and soaring costs bog down projects in the US, China’s state-directed model is moving at record speed – but geographical limits pose huge challenges When Francois Morin, China d

Nvidia to team with Wall Street on US$500 billion package for AI infrastructure projects Apollo Global Management, Blackstone and Goldman Sachs are among the firms in talks with Nvidia on the deal, the Financial Times reported A group of US investment giants are partnering with N