China’s AI talent shortage has tech giants recruiting teenagers

China’s AI companies are running short on engineers, so they’re now scouting talent as young as 13 with camps, mentorships, and even guaranteed jobs straight out of high school.

A cloud tenant could rattle the power grid with nothing but a rented GPU, researchers say
A cloud tenant could rattle the power grid with nothing but a rented GPU, researchers say

AI data centres already strain the grid just by running. A new paper asks a darker question: what if a tenant tried to break it on purpose? Three researchers at Zhejiang University set out the idea in a preprint called Bit2Watt, accepted to a leading h…

US and China reportedly plan a fresh round of AI talks in September
US and China reportedly plan a fresh round of AI talks in September

The United States and China are reportedly preparing to hold a fresh round of talks on artificial intelligence in September, according to people familiar with the planning, in what would be the clearest sign yet that the two governments want to keep a …

Ant International raises $1.2bn to fund its payments push beyond China
Ant International raises $1.2bn to fund its payments push beyond China

Ant International, the overseas affiliate of Chinese fintech group Ant Group, has raised about $1.2 billion in a fresh equity round to fund its expansion into markets beyond its home turf. The company confirmed the raise, describing it as capital to sp…

China weighs export controls on its own AI models and chips, FT reports
China weighs export controls on its own AI models and chips, FT reports

China is considering tightening export controls on its home-grown artificial intelligence models and the chips that run them, according to the Financial Times, in a move that would push Beijing’s technology defences well beyond the raw materials and eq…

Kai-Fu Lee stopped building AI models and started selling enterprise data infrastructure. Now 01.ai is heading for a Hong Kong IPO.
Kai-Fu Lee stopped building AI models and started selling enterprise data infrastructure. Now 01.ai is heading for a Hong Kong IPO.

Kai-Fu Lee’s 01.ai is raising a pre-IPO round ahead of a planned Hong Kong listing in 2027, the former Google China chief told Bloomberg at the World AI Conference in Shanghai. The company is unwinding its offshore holding structure, the same prerequis…

A Chinese AI lab just built a giant data centre with no Nvidia inside
A Chinese AI lab just built a giant data centre with no Nvidia inside

For a year, one question has hung over China’s fast-improving AI models: what are they actually running on? Z.AI has just given part of the answer. It has built a huge data centre that uses only Chinese-made chips. The company, formerly known as Zhipu,…

The firm that wires AI data centres is chasing Hong Kong’s biggest IPO since Alibaba.
The firm that wires AI data centres is chasing Hong Kong’s biggest IPO since Alibaba.

One of the quiet winners of the AI boom is about to test the public markets. Zhongji Innolight, a Chinese maker of high-speed optical transceivers, has started gauging demand for a Hong Kong listing worth as much as $8bn. The Shenzhen-listed company wo…

Alibaba says Qwen3.8 is the world’s No.2 AI model. It has shown no proof.
Alibaba says Qwen3.8 is the world’s No.2 AI model. It has shown no proof.

Days after a rival Chinese lab shook Silicon Valley, Alibaba has fired back. The company previewed Qwen3.8, its most powerful model yet, and made a bold claim: it trails only one model on Earth. Alibaba unveiled the model at the World Artificial Intell…

China’s car market is heading for its worst year since 2021. Sales fell 20% in the first half.
China’s car market is heading for its worst year since 2021. Sales fell 20% in the first half.

China’s passenger car sales fell 20.2% in the first half of 2026 to 8.7 million units, and the China Passenger Car Association has lowered its full-year forecast to a 14% decline, projecting 20.4 million deliveries, down from a record 23.7 million in 2…