While the Dutch government has offered goodwill in the dispute over control of Nexperia, a Chinese-owned, Netherlands-based chipmaker, the crisis is far from over. China’s Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday welcomed the Dutch government’s revocation of an executive order taking control of the firm. But it also noted that a Dutch court ruling remained a “key obstacle” to resolving the matter. Wingtech Technology, the Chinese owner of Nexperia, said it had yet to resume control of the chipmaker. In...

Lenovo Group, the world’s largest personal computer maker, is betting that its own artificial intelligence agent will help grow its AI-powered consumer electronics business, even as the industry faces a global memory chip supply crunch. Chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing on Thursday said the company would globally launch in January its “personal AI super agent”, which would leverage AI models to anticipate a user’s intentions via “portable devices and personal trusted computing hubs”. Beijing-based...

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Wednesday shrugged off concerns about an artificial intelligence bubble as the company surprised Wall Street with accelerating growth after several quarters of slowing sales. The chipmaker’s stellar third-quarter earnings and fourth-quarter forecast calmed, at least temporarily, investor nerves over concerns an AI boom has outrun fundamentals. Global markets have looked to the chip designer to determine whether investing billions of dollars in AI infrastructure...

Warning signs are flashing from experts, entrepreneurs and workers concerned that automation is coming for a wide range of information-oriented jobs. What ordinarily would be just another boom-bust cycle fuelled by computer-generated efficiency, a typewriter to keyboard type of evolution, is this time threatening to overturn the basic social contract between employers and employees. Unless and until this is taken seriously by policymakers, the modern middle class risks becoming a relic of...

The release of Google DeepMind’s latest artificial intelligence model has sparked debate about the future of US-China competition in AI and the ability of Chinese developers to keep up. Gemini 3 Pro, released on Tuesday, overtook OpenAI’s GPT-5.1 to give Google the top spot on leading AI benchmarking firm Artificial Analysis’ Intelligence Index for the first time. The model was roundly praised by fellow industry competitors, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Lin Junyang, the technical lead of...

UBTech Robotics says it plans to expand its assembly of humanoid robots 10-fold next year to as many as 5,000 units and double that to 10,000 in 2027, as the scale economics of China’s advanced manufacturing prowess shaves a fifth off production costs every year. The Shenzhen-based company was on track to deliver 500 humanoid robots for industrial use by the end of this year, scaling up since delivering the first 10 droids last year, UBTech’s chief branding officer Michael Tam said during an...

China has cemented its position as a global leader in artificial intelligence, while Hong Kong is carving out a niche as a specialised innovation hub, underpinned by the country’s strong governance and regulatory competitiveness, according to a global index. Technology breakthroughs such as the low-cost, highly efficient AI models introduced by start-up DeepSeek, combined with national support, propelled China to the forefront of the global AI race, alongside the US, the European Union and...