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Alibaba Group Holding has launched its first data centres in South America, as the Chinese technology giant ramps up its artificial intelligence infrastructure buildout in emerging markets amid an intensifying US-China AI rivalry. The Hangzhou-based company announced on Thursday that its new Brazilian venture would operate two data centres offering local enterprises secure cloud infrastructure and...
Asian-American lawmakers in the US Congress have condemned a right-wing podcast that called for the forced internment of Chinese-Americans during a hypothetical war with Beijing, warning that such rhetoric fuelled hate against the community. The joint statement was released by congresswomen Grace Meng, chairwoman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (Capac), and Judy Chu, Capac’s cha...
Chinese scientists have developed a cross-border early warning system with counterparts in Nepal to monitor Himalayan glacial lake outburst floods. The system has issued timely alerts over the past several years, effectively preventing casualties. But on Wednesday, a high-altitude ice-rock avalanche took everyone by surprise. The debris flow hit a river in Nepal, generating a devastating flash flo...
Meta Platforms is rolling out new Instagram alerts in Hong Kong to notify parents when their teenagers repeatedly search for suicide- or self-harm-related terms within a short period, as part of broader efforts to strengthen parental controls and online safety for young users. The global technology conglomerate said the alerts, which began rolling out to users this month, would be triggered by rep...
Two years ago, the prospect of a trade war between the United States and Canada, two of the world’s most closely integrated economies, would have been unthinkable. However, US President Donald Trump’s recklessness and capriciousness know no bounds. Last week’s breakdown in negotiations between the North American neighbours, which triggered the imposition of US tariffs of 50 per cent on a wide rang...
The catastrophic flash floods and mudslide that devastated the Gyirong Port crossing along the China-Nepal border on Wednesday have dealt a heavy blow to China-Nepal trade and imperilled Kathmandu’s push to cut reliance on Indian transit routes. However, if Beijing and Kathmandu are to proceed with ambitious infrastructure projects, they are expected to take environmental factors into consideratio...
The Iran war has reached its endgame: a costly stalemate. Six months after US and Israeli forces attacked Iran, killing its supreme leader and maiming his son and successor, the Iranian government is under economic siege, but it still holds power and believes it has time on its side. A threat by US President Donald Trump to impose crippling new sanctions on Iran faces a fundamental problem: Tehra...
South Korea’s central bank has raised interest rates for a second straight month, with analysts saying its semiconductor boom has given policymakers room to confront inflation, a weak won and rising home prices, but at the cost of a deeper squeeze on indebted households and small businesses. The Bank of Korea (BOK) lifted its benchmark rate by 0.25 percentage point to 3.0 per cent on Thursday, a m...
Three women have been charged after a brawl broke out in a children’s play area at a Hong Kong shopping centre, igniting heated debate across the city. Police released new details of their investigation on Thursday, saying the 68‑year‑old woman seen in a viral video slapping a young girl was struck first. Footage widely circulated online shows the elderly woman, who was visiting the play zone with...
Free courses coordinated by the Hong Kong government will leverage the expertise of tech giants such as Google and Microsoft to help boost the adoption of AI by businesses for content creation, data analysis and workflow efficiency. The Hong Kong Productivity Council on Thursday announced the launch of the programme targeting industries such as education, healthcare, manufacturing, retail and logi...
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that Russia could strike British military targets inside and outside Ukraine in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russia using British missiles. Zakharova called on Britain to back off what she called London’s hostile stance on Ukraine, which she said risked taking the conflict to an entirely new level. She had told the sa...
The coastal Chinese province of Zhejiang is battening down for the approach of Typhoon Saudel, with flights cancelled across the area. The eastern province is home to a number of major commercial centres, including the industrial hub of Ningbo, the port city of Zhoushan, and Wenzhou. Ningbo Lishe International Airport said flights in and out of the facility would be suspended from 11.30pm on Thurs...
A famous Chinese mathematician known for his dishevelled genius image recently began selling workbooks for primary and secondary school students, which were quickly sold out within days. Wei Dongyi, 35, is an associate professor in the Mathematics Department at Peking University. He gained instant fame in 2021 after a vox pop on the Peking University campus. In the video, he appears dressed simply...
A famous Chinese mathematician known for his dishevelled genius image recently began selling workbooks for primary and secondary school students, which were quickly sold out within days. Wei Dongyi, 35, is an associate professor in the Mathematics Department at Peking University. He gained instant fame in 2021 after a vox pop on the Peking University campus. In the video, he appears dressed simply...
A Singapore opposition lawmaker has urged that state investor Temasek’s money not be used to shore up Air India, after the Indian carrier had asked owners Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, which Temasek majority-owns, for US$1.5 billion. Kenneth Tiong, a member of parliament for the opposition Workers’ Party, said in a social media post on Wednesday that because Singapore Airlines owns about 25 p...
Shares in Chinese robotics star Unitree Robotics rebounded on Thursday following five straight days of losses that erased nearly half of its market value, although it did little to cool fears of a Chinese humanoid robot bubble. The stock rose nearly 4 per cent to close at 615 yuan on Thursday, giving the company a market capitalisation of 248.8 billion yuan (US$37 billion), after touching a record...
Bill Gates is likely to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping later this year as the Microsoft co-founder seeks to rally support for global cooperation on artificial intelligence (AI) risks. A meeting may take place in November, Reuters reported on Wednesday citing a Gates spokesman. Xi last met his “old friend” in 2023, when Gates became the first foreign business leader to visit the Chinese presiden...
Hong Kong labour authorities have unveiled changes to the system that sends out warnings to workers about overexertion during very hot weather, reducing thresholds so higher-tier alerts can be issued more easily following intense criticism of the mechanism. The Labour Department said on Thursday that two new conditions would be introduced to the Heat Stress at Work Warning system from Friday. The ...
Hong Kong’s Heat Stress at Work warning system will be automatically upgraded when temperatures reach 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit) across multiple districts, after labour authorities lowered its activation thresholds following criticism. Two weeks after the system — which advises outdoor workers to take measures to prevent heatstroke — drew criticism for failing to issue higher-level alerts ...
China’s Zhipu AI has launched its latest open-weight model, GLM-5.3-Flash – previously code-named Ox Alpha – saying that the system ran entirely on a cluster of 100,000 domestically produced chips during a high-profile stealth trial. The announcement followed a week of heavy traffic on artificial intelligence model marketplace OpenRouter and agent platform OpenCode, where the model processed 62 tr...
The next big competition in artificial intelligence is over science. The question is shifting from who has the largest model to who can use AI to shorten the discovery cycle: forming a hypothesis, running simulations, designing an experiment, operating equipment, collecting results and learning from them. The United States made that shift explicit. The Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission aims t...
China should forge a national consensus on “regaining mastery of the oceans” and direct overseas investment returns into defence spending to brace for sea-power competition with the US, according to a prominent Chinese academic. Di Dongsheng, associate dean of Renmin University’s school of international studies in Beijing, warned on Tuesday that as economic ties between the United States, the domi...
The operator of the Hong Kong government’s 1823 platform will expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI) within this year to transcribe, summarise and triage residents’ inquiries, freeing frontline staff to handle more complicated cases. The Digital Policy Office also said on Thursday that it would start exploring the application of agentic AI from the fourth quarter of this year and study how...
Bourse operator Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) is exploring merging the GEM board with its main board by creating a new chapter of its listing rules, according to a source familiar with the discussions. The proposal to create Chapter 18D, which would be a core part of the second phase of the review of the listing regime, would be subject to a public consultation by the end of the year, th...
Japan plans to look into popular animal cafes, where visitors can interact with anything from cats to capybaras, following concerns about hygiene and the creatures’ welfare, authorities said on Thursday. Japan has hundreds of the cafes where campaigners say animals are sometimes kept in cramped spaces, and that their popularity encourages the capture and illegal trade of rare wildlife. A fact-find...
The Philippines’ push for military modernisation is being squeezed by a ballooning pension bill for its troops as fears mount over its ability to finance newer ships, aircraft and other defence assets. The Department of National Defence has proposed spending 142.95 billion pesos (US$2.3 billion) on military and uniformed personnel (MUP) pensions in 2027, out of a total proposed defence budget of 3...
Gold flows into Hong Kong eased to about 107 tonnes in July despite mainland corporate buyers pouring capital into new bullion vaults, as they bet on the city’s strategic ambition to establish itself as Asia’s premier hub for the precious metal. The city’s non-monetary gold imports fell about 18 per cent from June, a month that registered a decade-long high as banks built up inventory ahead of the...
More than 100 Hong Kong-based applicants have been affected by the indefinite postponement of US immigrant visa interviews worldwide, consultants have said, with student and travel applications also disrupted. The global pause, which marks a sharp tightening of legal immigration under the Trump administration, has left some Hong Kong applicants fearing the United States could scrap the entire path...
At least 100 Hong Kong-based applicants have been affected by the indefinite postponement of US immigrant visa interviews worldwide, immigration consultants say, with student and travel visa applications also disrupted. The global pause, which marks a sharp tightening of legal immigration under the Trump administration, has left some Hong Kong applicants fearing the US could scrap the entire immig...
The body of an unidentified person was found inside the wheel well of an aircraft at Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International Airport Terminal 2 (KLIA2) on Thursday (Aug 27). The body, whose gender has yet to be determined, was discovered at about 6.55am in the wheel well of a flight from Tokyo, Japan, which landed at about 6.30am. It is learnt that the body, clad in jeans and a white shirt, was foun...
