China signals global AI push as MiniMax CEO joins meeting with Premier Li Qiang

South China Morning Post - Jan 20, 2026

The CEO of Chinese artificial intelligence company MiniMax met Premier Li Qiang on Monday, becoming the second representative from a foundational AI model developer to meet with the national leader after Liang Wenfeng, founder of DeepSeek, a year ago. The appearance of 36-year-old Yan Junjie along with eight other leading figures from China’s business, culture and education spheres underscored the rapid ascent of the newly minted billionaire, who steered his company founded just four years ago...

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Shares in ZTE rose more than 7 per cent in Hong Kong on Tuesday after the Chinese telecommunications equipment maker posted a nearly fivefold jump in third-quarter profit, driven by rapid expansion in its computing infrastructure and overseas operations. Net profit attributable to shareholders reached 1.31 billion yuan (US$196.3 million) for the three months ended September 30, up 395 per cent from a year earlier, according to an exchange filing released on Monday evening. Revenue climbed 34 per...

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China shoots ahead on AI video models

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Long before artificial intelligence became the next big thing in the tech industry, Wang Jian was crafting the foundational infrastructure that would eventually power it. In 2008, he joined Alibaba Group Holding – owner of the South China Morning Post – as chief architect and founded Alibaba Cloud in 2009, convincing the company’s leadership to invest heavily in building a cloud computing infrastructure from scratch. Today, Wang’s purview has expanded considerably. As an academician at the...

Nvidia’s Jensen Huang brings ‘sovereign AI’ push to Kazakhstan, shrugs off bubble fears

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China’s humanoid robots hunt for work in South Korea as Seoul bets on physical AI

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This article was first published by The Korea Times in a partnership with the South China Morning Post. Chinese humanoid robot makers are accelerating efforts to gain a foothold in South Korea, moving beyond dance performances and showroom displays to factory trials and commercial deployments, as Seoul ramps up investment in physical artificial intelligence. A growing number of Chinese robotics companies – including Hong Kong-listed UBTech Robotics, start-up Anyverse Dynamics, Shanghai-based...

Unitree developing AI system to let humanoid robots improve themselves

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China’s Unitree unveils ‘guardian’ robot that can disarm attackers, lift cars

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Meta to pay New Mexico a historic US$25 billion in Cambridge Analytica Facebook case

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Meta Platforms was ordered to pay a groundbreaking US$25 billion civil penalty to the state of New Mexico in a consumer deception case spurred by the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The fine issued by state court Judge Francis Mathew is among the largest verdicts issued in US legal history. The award comes after a jury in Santa Fe determined that Meta had violated the state’s consumer protection over 43 million times based on widely viewed deceptive statements made by the company and its top...

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Washington’s DeepSeek ban may deter US firms from adopting Chinese AI models: experts

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is set to take the stage in Berlin on Wednesday, as the world’s most valuable company faces heightened investor scrutiny over whether the massive artificial intelligence spending boom – the engine behind the chipmaker’s meteoric growth – can deliver long-term returns. The conference agenda focuses on sovereign AI, industrial automation and operational infrastructure – key sectors where Nvidia hopes to drive demand beyond the handful of US tech giants currently dominating...

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