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High‑end Chinese snack brands have moved traditional roasted seeds and nuts from street stalls into glossy mall stores, prompting sticker‑shock and online backlash as prices climb into the hundreds of yuan per jin. The premium push is driven by mall costs, higher‑grade raw materials and craft processes, but it collides with entrenched consumer expectations and a category that lacks coffee‑style habitual demand.

China’s informal industry of patient companions has grown rapidly to help elderly and urban patients navigate crowded hospitals, but it remains fragmented, poorly regulated and exposed to fraud and liability risks. Recent local pilots and an interagency statement signal a move toward professionalisation, while practitioners warn that certification and platform dynamics have yet to resolve structural precarity.

Kunlun Wanwei has launched Skywork Desktop, a desktop AI agent that runs locally and processes files on a user’s machine without uploading them to the cloud. The move reflects demand for privacy‑preserving, low‑latency AI but brings its own security and management challenges for organisations.

Counterpoint Research warns that the smartphone market will not normalise before late 2027 and could stretch into early 2028 as rising storage‑chip costs and weak demand squeeze margins. OEMs are responding by cutting models, delaying launches, optimising high‑end configurations and considering cloud offload to reduce hardware pressure.

Elon Musk and other tech leaders have promoted the idea of orbital data centres to solve terrestrial limits on AI compute. AWS chief Matt Garman and other experts argue the concept remains economically and technically impractical today, citing launch cadence, radiation, thermal management and maintenance challenges. The gap between headline visions and engineering reality suggests continued experimentation but little prospect of mass migration of hyperscale AI into orbit in the near term.

Alibaba’s Qianwen has open‑sourced Qwen3‑Coder‑Next, an 80B parameter model designed for coding agents and local deployment that combines hybrid attention with MoE to lower inference costs. The release aims to accelerate enterprise adoption in China by enabling on‑premise use and customization, while raising questions about IP, safety and the infrastructure needed to realize claimed efficiency gains.

Fei‑Fei Li told the Cisco AI Summit that AI’s next major frontier is spatial intelligence: models that understand and simulate 3D physical space. Her company World Labs has produced Marble, a “world model” designed for persistent, physically consistent virtual environments with applications from robotics training to therapy, while cautioning that data scarcity and real‑world complexity make general‑purpose robots a distant prospect.

AMD closed 2025 with record revenue and profit, driven by strong data‑centre and client CPU performance, but its Q1 2026 revenue guidance — a midpoint implying a small quarter‑on‑quarter decline — disappointed investors. Export restrictions on the MI308 product and limited visibility into future China sales added uncertainty, triggering a sharp after‑hours sell‑off despite management’s bullish long‑term growth targets.

A photograph of a wrapped stealth unmanned aircraft aboard the Type 076 amphibious ship Sichuan has prompted observers to identify the platform as the carrier‑adapted Attack‑21. If integrated operationally, such unmanned systems and electromagnetic catapult technology could enable China to perform long‑range strike and persistent ISR from large‑deck assault ships, complicating regional defence and amphibious deterrence calculations.

China’s central government has made rural consumption and NEV adoption a policy priority while issuing stricter rules on automotive data leaving the country. Complementary municipal support in Shanghai and robust private financing in autonomy and supply-chain contracts signal expanding demand and deepening domestic capabilities, even as data governance raises compliance costs for foreign firms.

A leaked paper outlines the PL-16, a compact Chinese air‑to‑air missile with an asserted 300 km range designed for internal carriage on fifth‑generation fighters. By trading extreme size for fit and firepower density, the PL-16 promises to extend the J‑20’s BVR reach and complicate regional air‑defense and coalition targeting strategies.

A federal judge in Oregon issued a 14-day temporary restraining order preventing ICE from using chemical and kinetic weapons against protesters and journalists in the absence of an imminent threat, after plaintiffs documented repeated deployments around the Portland ICE office. The order narrows the permissible circumstances for nonlethal crowd-control tactics and protects reporters from being targeted, while preserving officers’ ability to act in true emergencies.

Two fatal ICE shootings in Minneapolis in January triggered nationwide protests and an unprecedented federal deployment, intensifying a conflict between Washington and local authorities over immigration enforcement. The incidents have highlighted tensions between national security framing and civil‑liberties concerns, with political, legal and electoral consequences likely to unfold in the months ahead.

Voices from the Global South, highlighted in a People’s Daily feature, argue that a historic legacy of colonialism has been channeled into coordinated action to reshape global governance. Through diplomacy, economic partnerships and institutional initiatives, Southern states seek greater representation and alternative rules on climate, development finance and technology governance.

With the AUKUS submarine programme facing mounting delays and political hurdles, some Western analysts have proposed Australia acquire US B‑2 stealth bombers as an alternative means of long‑range deterrence. The proposal highlights the gap between strategic ambitions and procurement realities, but faces steep legal, logistical and political barriers that make it unlikely as a straightforward solution.

Iran has unveiled the induction of 1,000 new military drones and showcased six distinct models, positioning the capability as a deterrent against potential US strikes. The move complicates US force protection in the region, heightens risks from Tehran’s proxy networks, and forces Gulf states into a difficult balancing act between alliance ties and economic self‑preservation.

Israel’s Chief of Staff Zamir has declared the IDF in a period of heightened war readiness, citing lingering tensions with Iran and lessons from the October 2023 Hamas attacks. He called for both stronger defences and preparations for offensive operations across multiple theatres, signalling planning for a possible multi‑front conflict.

African political figures have criticised Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi’s recent rhetoric and Japan’s military expansion as threatening the post‑World War II international order. They warn that such moves risk inflaming regional tensions, undermining treaties and norms, and alienating countries that uphold principles of sovereignty and non‑interference.

The U.S. ambassador in Athens said President Trump plans an official visit to Greece, a declaration that signals growing American interest in the eastern Mediterranean. The trip — timing and itinerary still unknown — would have implications for regional energy projects, NATO dynamics and U.S. relations with Greece, Turkey, Israel and Cyprus.

Hainan International Commercial Space Launch Company says Wenchang Aerospace Launch Support Co. will back nearly 30 launches in 2026, including maiden flights and new ground-workstations. The announcement highlights a significant ramp-up in China’s commercial launch activity, with implications for industry capacity, regional economics in Hainan, and global competition in satellite deployment.