Alibaba unveils Qwen-3.5, sharpening global race to spread AI models

South China Morning Post - Feb 16, 2026

Alibaba Cloud has unveiled its next-generation open artificial intelligence model, Qwen-3.5, in a move set to have major implications for the global AI race between China and the US. The much-anticipated release, timed on the eve of the Lunar New Year, capped a frenetic week in which nearly every major Chinese AI developer rolled out new flagship models. The two new 3.5-series models were made available on Alibaba’s cloud platform Model Studio on Monday afternoon. The new Qwen-3.5-Open-Source...

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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...

Tesla signs deal to integrate Alipay into its cars as China competition heats up

Tesla signs deal to integrate Alipay into its cars as China competition heats up

Tesla has agreed a deal to integrate Chinese fintech giant Ant Group’s Alipay digital payment software into its vehicles in China, as Elon Musk’s firm steps up efforts to offer localised smart features amid intense competition in the Chinese market. The agreement, signed on Tuesday, will see Tesla roll out an Alipay-powered smart parking service across its Chinese fleet, according to the fintech firm. Neither side revealed a launch date or which car models would receive the feature, though...

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

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

The US government’s latest ban on Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek could have a chilling effect on the wider American business community and deter companies from adopting low-cost Chinese AI models, industry experts say. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ordered federal civilian agencies to remove DeepSeek products and third-party services built on the Chinese AI model from their IT systems, according to a directive signed in July and published on Monday. The...

Nvidia CEO to deliver keynote speech in Berlin as his firm faces investor scrutiny over AI

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Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek has fully open-sourced an internally developed framework designed to run AI models efficiently, as a senior researcher at the company described the growing divide between open-source and closed-source AI as a battle between “light and darkness”. The company on Tuesday released DeepInfer, an inference framework tailored to support its DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model on both Nvidia’s SM100 Blackwell graphics processing units (GPUs) and Huawei...

Why Anthropic has a major China problem ahead of its blockbuster IPO

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China creates state-owned firm in Xiongan to develop nation’s AI data resources

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Alibaba’s RISC-V IP powers over 6 billion shipped chips as tech giant targets AI, autos

Alibaba’s RISC-V IP powers over 6 billion shipped chips as tech giant targets AI, autos

Alibaba Group Holding’s research arm, Damo Academy, has seen more than 6 billion chips shipped based on its XuanTie RISC-V architecture, marking a milestone as the tech giant doubles down on the open standard in artificial intelligence and automotive systems. Meng Jianyi, chief scientist at Damo Academy, announced the figure on Monday at the annual RISC-V Summit China in Shenzhen. The achievement comes as Chinese companies seek to play a greater role in the global RISC-V ecosystem, an...

Alibaba’s RISC-V IP powers over 6 billion shipped chips as tech giant targets AI, autos

Alibaba’s RISC-V IP powers over 6 billion shipped chips as tech giant targets AI, autos

Alibaba Group Holding’s research arm, Damo Academy, has seen more than 6 billion chips shipped based on its XuanTie RISC-V architecture, marking a milestone as the tech giant doubles down on the open standard in artificial intelligence and automotive systems. Meng Jianyi, chief scientist at Damo Academy, announced the figure on Monday at the annual RISC-V Summit China in Shenzhen. The achievement comes as Chinese companies seek to play a greater role in the global RISC-V ecosystem, an...

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