US video game developer Riot Games, creator of League of Legends, retains bragging rights to the most popular PC game in China nearly a decade and a half after its launch. First introduced in 2009 and brought to the mainland in 2011, the multiplayer online battle game has been around longer than many of those who play it – a remarkable feat in an industry known for its rapid shifts. The secret to the game’s longevity may lie in the sustained appeal of the League of Legends esports scene, as...

The recovery of China’s tech stocks from their trough is still at an early stage, as the country’s emergence as an artificial intelligence superpower reshapes global platforms and lures Western capital back, according to a senior investment banker at JPMorgan. As Chinese entrepreneurs expanded their businesses globally and deepened their involvement in AI, their companies and fundraising plans were once again drawing the attention of international investors after years of stagnation, said Mark...

Leading Chinese electric-vehicle (EV) maker Xpeng reported record quarterly revenue and sharply narrowed losses in the third quarter, even as its Hong Kong-listed shares fell on Monday after investors shrugged off a bullish call from JPMorgan. The Guangzhou-based firm’s net loss narrowed by nearly 80 per cent to 380.9 million yuan (US$53.6 million) in the third quarter from 1.81 billion yuan a year earlier, according to a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange. Revenue surged 101.8 per cent year...

China’s e-commerce giants Alibaba Group Holding and JD.com reported record-breaking sales for the Singles’ Day online shopping festival, as the companies looked to artificial intelligence to help boost sales and traffic amid a sluggish economy. During the event, which ran for almost a month from mid-October, Alibaba’s online retail platforms Taobao and Tmall saw more than 34,000 brands double their sales from a year ago, the company said on Saturday. More than 18,000 brands recorded sales growth...

Alibaba Group Holding has officially launched its multipurpose artificial intelligence app, Qwen, promising a “free-for-all” gateway for consumers to access a variety of AI-powered services, from mapping to shopping. Qwen, powered by Alibaba Cloud’s open-source model series of the same name and marketed as “the best personal AI assistant”, serves not only as a chatbot but also as a comprehensive AI tool designed to meet user needs in both professional and personal contexts, the company said on...

Chinese technology giant Huawei Technologies is expected to unveil a new artificial intelligence infrastructure technology on Friday that could double the utilisation efficiency of graphic processing units (GPUs), according to the state-owned Shanghai Securities News. The report said the technology would be able to lift the utilisation rate of AI chips – including GPUs and neural processing units (NPUs) – to 70 per cent, up from the current 30 to 40 per cent, in another major advance in “using...

Alibaba Group Holding has begun a revamp of its artificial intelligence chatbot in a move to match OpenAI’s ChatGPT, according to app store information and media reports, as some observers see “panic” in Silicon Valley over the Chinese tech giant’s rapid AI progress. The new chatbot app, Qwen, an upgraded and renamed version of the previous app, Tongyi, became available on Android and Apple app stores on Friday. Alibaba dubbed the updated app the “most powerful official AI assistant for its...