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Alibaba, Baidu’s IPO plans for AI chip design units...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/24

The plans of Alibaba Group Holding and Baidu to list their semiconductor design units could intensify competition with other domestic artificial intelligence chip developers to unseat Nvidia as the country’s top supplier of high-performance AI processors, according to analysts. The two Chinese internet peers’ initiatives reflected the strong investor appetite for AI chip firms and growing demand for alternative computing resources in the domestic AI sector, as Beijing pushed for greater...

In 2016, Hong Kong shivered through coldest day in 6...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/24

This article was first published on January 25, 2016 By Naomi Ng and Ernest Kao The city’s coldest weather in nearly six decades was expected to continue into today, prompting a suspension of primary schools and pleas from officials urging the public to avoid hiking the highest local peaks, where sub-zero temperatures left roads frozen and dangerous. Minimum temperatures at the Observatory in Tsim Sha Tsui dropped to just 3.1 degrees Celsius yesterday, the lowest reading since 1957 and the...

Pentagon plans ‘more limited’ North Korean role,...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/24

The Pentagon foresees a “more limited” role in deterring North Korea, with South Korea taking primary responsibility for the task, a Pentagon policy document released on Friday said, a move likely to raise concern in Seoul. South Korea hosts about 28,500 US troops in combined defence against North Korea’s military threat and Seoul has raised its defence budget by 7.5 per cent for this year. “South Korea is capable of taking primary responsibility for deterring North Korea with critical but

Why are tensions along Afghan-Tajikistan border such...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/24

Monday’s fatal blast at a Chinese restaurant in Kabul has underscored the grave security threat China is facing, not just in Afghanistan but also in wider Central Asia. One potential area of vulnerability is Tajikistan, Central Asia’s poorest country, which has a weak military and a long border with Afghanistan. On the same day as the Kabul bombing, the Chinese embassy in Tajikistan issued a travel warning, telling its citizens and companies to boost security and evacuate from the border

From labs to listings: US-China AI race makes capital...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/24

The US-China tech rivalry is no longer confined to the laboratories, fabs and boardrooms of the industry’s biggest names – the artificial intelligence battlefield has now expanded into the capital markets, where ambition is priced in real time. As Washington and Beijing push rival technology ecosystems, initial public offerings and listings are becoming a high-stakes referendum on who gets funding, credibility and, most of all, the runway to scale. Across the Pacific, the contest has been...

New Zealand landslide: human remains found as...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/24

New Zealand police have found human remains beneath mud and debris from a landslide that struck a campsite in the popular holiday spot of Mount Maunganui, and are now moving to recover more victims. Efforts to rescue at least six people buried alive at the park ended on Saturday. Police Superintendent Tim Anderson said it could take several days to locate all of the bodies, after a mountain of dirt and debris tumbled onto a campsite in Mount Maunganui on Thursday. Anderson said it was...

China probe into Trip.com zeroes in on algorithms,...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/24

Chinese regulators are targeting one of the world’s biggest travel platforms in an anti-monopoly probe after complaints it had hurt travellers and travel operators in China’s expansive tourism market, analysts said. Unlike the broad legal actions against Chinese tech firms and cram schools five years ago, the investigation into Trip.com is seen as a relatively isolated case – yet one that might precipitate others – in response to issues over commissions, exclusivity and the sophisticated use

Contaminated milk powder likely source of ByHeart...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/24

Powdered whole milk used to make ByHeart infant formula could be a source of contamination that led to an outbreak of botulism that has sickened dozens of babies, according to US health officials. Testing by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found the type of bacteria that could cause the illness in two samples linked to the formula, officials said on Friday. The agency found that bacteria in an unopened tin of formula matched a sample from a sick baby. It also matched contamination...

Why delayed reform stands in the way of class-action...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/24

Residents of Hong Kong’s Wang Fuk Court have vowed to collectively fight for justice in the aftermath of the city’s deadliest inferno in seven decades, as legal experts call for authorities to press ahead with a long-stalled proposal to introduce a class-action mechanism for multiparty litigation. A former member of the estate’s owners’ corporation also urged authorities in an open letter on Saturday to begin recovering a HK$31 million (US$3.98 million) performance bond from the estate’s...

China grandma, 101, stays up late to watch TV, enjoys...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/24

A 101-year-old Chinese grandmother has dazzled and inspired many by embracing a “reverse lifestyle”, staying up late to watch TV and snacking freely, yet still leading a healthy life, complete with all her natural teeth. Jiang Yueqin hails from Wenzhou, Zhejiang province in southeastern China, and is a proud mother of seven. In her youth, she turned down job opportunities at a state-owned enterprise to become a full-time housewife, dedicating herself to raising her children. Recently, she has...

Gloves are off as Malaysia’s strong ringgit bites...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/24

Malaysia’s world-leading producers of latex gloves are facing tightened profit margins as the nation’s strong currency bites into dollar-denominated earnings, underscoring challenges for the nation’s exporters. “While ringgit strength lowers systemic risk at the macro level, it comes at the expense of exporter earnings,” said Teck Yong Eng, business enterprise and analytics professor at the University of Reading Malaysia. The strengthened Malaysian currency hurt first-quarter earnings of Top...

Malaysia’s PAS preaches ‘racial domination’ to woo...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/24

Malaysia’s next general election may well be decided by the country’s millions of young voters and its biggest conservative Islamist party is determined to win them over. For the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), winning young people’s support means dominating the online spaces they inhabit. “Whoever controls [online] media will gain their votes,” said the party’s deputy president, Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man, in an interview with This Week in Asia. Founded by religious scholars in 1951 amid the...

Vietnam grabs bigger slice of China’s durian market...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/24

Vietnam saw its exports of durians to China soar by US$500 million last year, as the country shook off earlier phytosanitary issues and leveraged its geographic advantages to outcompete its Southeast Asian rivals in the lucrative Chinese market. Growers from Vietnam shipped US$3.44 billion of the spiky, pungent fruit to China in 2025, up from US$2.94 billion the previous year, Chinese customs data showed. Leading supplier Thailand, meanwhile, lost market share as its exports to China remained...

US kills 2 in first known strike on alleged drug boat...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/23

The US military said on Friday that it had carried out a deadly strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, the first known attack since the raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month. US Southern Command said on social media that the boat was “engaged in narco-trafficking operations” and that the strike killed two people and left one survivor. It said it notified the coastguard to launch search and rescue operations for that...

Former Scorpions bassist Francis Buchholz dies at 71

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/23

The former bassist of the legendary German rock band Scorpions has died at the age of 71, his family said on Friday. “We received a message to this effect from his daughter,” Scorpions spokesman Peter Lanz said. The internationally successful band from the northern city of Hanover parted ways with Buchholz in 1992 after a dispute. Buchholz died of cancer on Thursday, according to a social media post signed by his family, who said he “departed this world peacefully and surrounded by

Who are the owners of the new TikTok US entity?

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/23

TikTok and its Chinese parent ByteDance announced on Thursday the official creation of a new US venture – TikTok USDS Joint Venture – to operate the short video app used by 200 million Americans. The deal, the culmination of years of legal and political uncertainty, is part of the effort to comply with a 2024 US law that aimed to push ByteDance to divest TikTok to address national security concerns over the app’s links to Beijing. Without a divestment, the app would have faced a nationwide...

Vietnam’s To Lam gets another 5-year term as...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/23

Vietnam’s top leader To Lam was reappointed on ‍Friday as head of the ruling Communist Party for the next five years after an uninimous vote by its central committee, as he pledged to turbocharge growth in the export-reliant nation.In the one-party state, Lam was re-elected to the country’s most powerful job by all 180 party officials from a newly formed committee at the end of the five-yearly party congress, according to an announcement at the party congress. In an address to the congress,

In Davos debut, Musk highlights key China advantage...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/23

The economic benefits of China’s abundant and cheap supply of electricity were recognised by US tech billionaire Elon Musk and other speakers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. As the United States and the European Union contemplate how to catch up, Tesla CEO Musk said the artificial intelligence (AI) industry was facing an energy bottleneck around the globe – with AI chips being produced rapidly and electricity output struggling to keep up – apart from the

China’s rocket start-ups push the envelope as IPOs...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/23

China is moving forward with the initial public offering (IPO) plans of four private rocket makers this month, as Beijing pushes to build up its commercial space industry amid intensifying competition with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The Shanghai Stock Exchange has issued questions on LandSpace Technology’s IPO application, according to an update late on Thursday, advancing the company’s plan to raise 7.5 billion yuan (US$1 billion) on the tech-focused Star market. IPO preparations also advanced at...

‘We are fearful’: Hong Kong youth hostel closure...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/23

Some tenants of a government-subsidised youth hostel in Hong Kong fear having to return to shoebox homes and are scrambling to find alternatives after a private operator announced its shutdown last week. A resident of the BeLIVING Youth Hub in Causeway Bay told the Post on Friday that the hostel’s operator, the Hong Kong United Youth Association, had called tenants last Monday and Tuesday to tell them that they would have to clear their flats by February 28. “We are all fearful now. We are...

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