US holds off blacklisting DeepSeek and 100-plus Chinese firms
US holds off blacklisting DeepSeek and 100-plus Chinese firms

The decision had, in effect, already been made. According to people familiar with the matter, reports Reuters, a US interagency committee approved adding the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, the memory-chip maker CXMT and more than 100 other companies flag…

EU Parliament strips immunity from senior Italian MEP in Huawei bribery probe
EU Parliament strips immunity from senior Italian MEP in Huawei bribery probe

The European Parliament voted on Tuesday to lift the parliamentary immunity of Fulvio Martusciello, clearing the way for Belgian prosecutors to pursue bribery allegations linked to Chinese tech giant Huawei. The vote was 344 in favour, 234 against, wit…

China signs up 26 financial institutions for digital-yuan cross-border payments
China signs up 26 financial institutions for digital-yuan cross-border payments

China’s central bank has brought a fresh batch of financial institutions into its digital-yuan network for cross-border payments, extending a currency that began life as a way to buy noodles in Shenzhen towards the far harder business of moving money b…

DeepSeek closes $7bn-plus round with an unusual structure
DeepSeek closes $7bn-plus round with an unusual structure

DeepSeek, the Chinese AI lab that unsettled the industry with a cheap, capable model last year, has closed its first round of outside funding, raising roughly 50 billion yuan, about $7bn, in a deal whose structure is as notable as its size. The valuati…

Alibaba unveils AI models for robots as China’s focus shifts to agents
Alibaba unveils AI models for robots as China’s focus shifts to agents

Alibaba has revealed its first suite of AI models for robots, a move that says as much about where Chinese technology is heading as about the models themselves. The launch came as the industry pivots away from chatbots and towards agents, the systems m…

Huawei’s ‘chip queen’ returns from seven years in the shadows with a bold new scaling law
Huawei’s ‘chip queen’ returns from seven years in the shadows with a bold new scaling law

For seven years, He Tingbo worked in silence. The head of Huawei’s semiconductor business, widely known as the company’s “chip queen,” vanished from public view in 2019 after Washington severed the Chinese company’s access to advanced technology. Her r…

Tesla’s self-driving safeguards fooled by $30 doll heads
Tesla’s self-driving safeguards fooled by $30 doll heads

A cottage industry has emerged on Chinese e-commerce platforms selling tiny plastic doll heads designed to trick Tesla’s cabin camera into thinking a driver is paying attention. The devices cost as little as $20 to $50.
The products — marketed as “trav…

Zhipu shares jump as Wall Street bets China AI fills the Anthropic gap
Zhipu shares jump as Wall Street bets China AI fills the Anthropic gap

Zhipu shares are flying. The Chinese AI lab, listed in Hong Kong as Knowledge Atlas Technology, surged as much as 48 per cent on Monday before closing up about 33 per cent, as Wall Street banks bet that China is the clear winner from Washington’s clamp…

Tencent-backed Enflame wins approval for an $888m IPO, the last of China’s ‘four AI chip dragons’
Tencent-backed Enflame wins approval for an $888m IPO, the last of China’s ‘four AI chip dragons’

The Enflame IPO is on. Shanghai Enflame Technology, an AI-chip startup backed by Tencent, has won listing-committee approval to raise about 6 billion yuan ($888m) on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s STAR board, according to Bloomberg. It is the last of Ch…

ByteDance is in talks to buy AI chips from China’s Iluvatar CoreX
ByteDance is in talks to buy AI chips from China’s Iluvatar CoreX

ByteDance is in talks to buy artificial-intelligence chips from Iluvatar CoreX, a Shanghai-based GPU maker that until recently sold almost entirely to government buyers, according to people familiar with the discussions cited by Reuters. The talks poin…