Stay up-to-date with the most recent news stories from around the world
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Anthropic expects to pay at least $80 billion to Amazon, Google and Microsoft by 2029 to host and run its Claude AI on cloud infrastructure. The projection highlights the centrality of hyperscaler compute in the AI economy and carries implications for corporate margins, cloud vendor leverage, chip demand, and regulatory attention.
A decade‑long Taobao seller in Ningbo has shifted focus from chasing platform traffic to running a local brick‑and‑mortar store after soaring online return rates and changing platform incentives eroded margins. By combining real‑world merchandising, community marketing on short‑video platforms and supply‑chain leverage, she has traded volatile online growth for steadier, local revenues.
Fangda Group’s flamboyant year‑end ‘cash wall’ has become a viral symbol of corporate generosity in China, coinciding with chairman Fang Wei’s rise to become Liaoning’s richest person. The payouts and public spectacles bolster employee morale and brand image but obscure a heavily leveraged corporate structure and acquisition setbacks that increase financial risk.
US stocks staged an intraday V-shaped recovery to close slightly higher while precious metals plunged after Fed comments dampened hopes for imminent rate cuts. Apple’s March product event lifted its stock and highlighted on-device AI ambitions, even as the CME probabilities and Fed messaging keep investors cautious about near-term monetary easing.
Leapmotor, led by founder Zhu Jiangming, vaulted from near-bankruptcy to become the top-selling Chinese new-energy carmaker in 2025 by combining strict cost control, aggressive price-for-feature models and deep in-house engineering. Strategic investments from Stellantis and FAW, plus a successful export push, underpinned growth, but challenges remain: brand elevation, sustainable profitability amid incentive rollbacks, and governance weaknesses exposed by a recent legal snag.
Wang Sicong has registered a new Beijing catering-management company and made several small lifestyle investments as his flagship investment vehicle, Pusi, faces asset auctions and enforcement actions. The moves reflect a strategic shift toward consumer services amid funding stress in China’s entertainment and content sectors and signal a low-cost testing approach rather than a major new expansion.
Songyan Dynamics, a two-year-old Chinese robotics start-up led by Tsinghua dropout Jiang Zheyuan, is pushing to scale humanoid robots into households by combining low-cost domestic models with higher-priced exports. Backed by strategic branding and a lean "guerrilla" team, the company aims to capitalize on an industry shift from demo-driven hype to deliveries and financial metrics as trackers predict rapid shipment growth in 2026.
Nvidia and Meta have signed a multi‑year partnership that will see Meta deploy millions of Nvidia chips across on‑premises and cloud infrastructure. The deal secures compute supply for Meta's AI ambitions while reinforcing Nvidia's dominant position in AI hardware, with wide implications for competitors, cloud providers and energy use.
Meta and Nvidia have widened a strategic partnership to include large‑scale deployment of Nvidia GPUs and the first standalone mass roll‑out of Nvidia’s Grace CPUs, plus future plans to adopt Vera CPUs around 2027. The deal ties Meta’s planned $135 billion capex trajectory to Nvidia’s full‑stack platform while leaving room for other suppliers as a hedge against vendor concentration.
Using MeerKAT and a powerful gravitational lens, astronomers have detected the most distant and brightest hydroxyl megamaser known, in a merging galaxy more than 8 billion light‑years away. The result demonstrates how sensitive radio arrays and lensing can probe molecular gas and extreme star formation at cosmological distances, opening new avenues for studying galaxy evolution ahead of the SKA era.
China’s Spring Festival Gala has become a major stage for robotics firms chasing public attention, but the industry still faces fundamental commercial challenges. High-profile performances generate emotional value without addressing core needs such as repeatable deployments, cash-flow sustainability, and industrial reliability.
As Chinese young adults face intrusive questioning during Lunar New Year visits, they are adopting new strategies—preparing stock answers, diverting conversation, avoiding visits or educating elders—to protect personal boundaries. These practices reveal broader tensions between ritual obligations and modern pressures such as urbanisation, housing costs and delayed family formation.
A NUAA research team reports a method to raise the critical flutter speed of flying‑wing designs by over 60 percent, potentially enabling a stealthy bomber to operate at supersonic speeds. While the result does not guarantee an operational supersonic H‑20, it removes a major technical barrier and alters strategic calculations about survivability and strike range.
President Trump said he has discussed future U.S. arms sales to Taiwan with Chinese leaders, a statement that contradicts a long-standing U.S. pledge not to consult Beijing and has alarmed officials in Taipei and Tokyo. The comments come amid reporting of a potential $20 billion package of air-defence systems and broader U.S.-China talks ahead of a planned presidential visit to China.
China’s 2026 Spring Festival Gala turned into a high‑stakes showcase for humanoid-robot firms, offering colossal national exposure but also prompting debate over whether theatrical demonstrations translate into commercial viability. The sector now faces a pivot from spectacle to scale: 2026 will test which firms can deliver reliable, cost-effective robots and which will be left behind as capital cools.
China’s biggest tech firms spent more than 45 billion yuan over the 2026 Lunar New Year in an AI‑focused red‑envelope battle that mixed cash prizes, task‑based incentives and offline vouchers. The campaign was a large‑scale acquisition and product‑education experiment whose success will be decided not by downloads or single‑night peaks but by whether users form lasting habits and remain active after the holiday.
Japanese police have detained three U.S. service members on suspicion of thefts in Tokyo and Okinawa, with two suspects potentially tied to a larger string of incidents involving sums that may exceed ¥10 million. The arrests risk intensifying longstanding local opposition to American bases and will test U.S.-Japan cooperation under the Status of Forces Agreement. The cases also highlight personnel welfare and oversight issues within U.S. forces in Japan, and could prompt calls for greater transparency and remedial measures from both Tokyo and local communities.
Armed attackers struck two villages in central Nigeria on February 3, killing more than 160 people. The UN Security Council condemned the massacre and urged international cooperation, while Nigeria deployed troops and confirmed US personnel are on the ground to assist in countering IS-linked militancy.
NORAD tracked two high-altitude objects over northern California on February 15 and dispatched two F-16s to intercept them. The objects were assessed to be meteorological balloons and posed no threat to military or civil aviation.
The U.S. Air Force flew 18 F-35A fighters from RAF Lakenheath to the Middle East on Feb. 16, supported by tankers and operating in three‑ship formations. The deployment is a significant, visible show of force meant to deter Iran and reassure regional partners amid heightened tensions.
