Day: September 9, 2023

Ant Group has launched its own large language model (LLM) – the technology used to train chatbots like ChatGPT – and a new Web3 brand targeting Hong Kong and overseas markets, as the Chinese fintech giant boosts its capabilities in generative artificial intelligence (AI) for the financial services industry. The Hangzhou-based company on Friday unveiled its self-developed “financial LLM” at the “Inclusion Conference on the Bund” event in Shanghai, along with two applications powered by the group’s AI model. “We have built computing power at a level of 10,000 GPUs…

According to the policy document published on Friday by five Chinese ministries led by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), China aims to build “three to five industrial clusters” around the emerging technologies by 2025 with key breakthrough applications and governance for the conceptual next-generation internet made up of three-dimensional spaces. The document, which maps out a blueprint covering 2023 to 2025, emphasises the application of the metaverse to various industries, such as home appliances, automotive and aerospace. Manufacturing industries such as steel and textiles can also adopt…

As China moves to tighten security around its domestic data, law enforcement agencies are expanding efforts to monitor compliance across the country – from big tech firms to smaller street-level businesses. Now, businesses ranging from restaurants to foot massage parlours are being warned about punishments they face for failing to follow the country’s evolving cybersecurity regulations. Last month, police in the city of Zhenjiang, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, carried out security sweeps at local businesses, issuing warnings to those that offered Wi-fi without requiring real-name registration, local media…

The United States and host India made the most of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s absence from the Group of 20 meeting on Saturday in New Delhi, India. They promoted promoting US-led multilateral lending to counter China’s infrastructure diplomacy, went on a charm offensive with developing nations and inserted some minimal language into the communique that indirectly condemned Chinese ally Russia over its Ukraine invasion. The G20, which includes China and Russia and accounts for 85 per cent of global GDP, saw Russian President Vladimir Putin also miss the proceedings at…

UK police said on Saturday they had arrested a man in his 20s for spying, with the Sunday Times reporting he was a researcher in Britain’s parliament suspected of working for China. “Officers from the Metropolitan Police Service arrested two men on 13 March on suspicion of offences under section 1 of the Official Secrets Act, 1911,” the force said. “A man in his 30s was arrested at an address in Oxfordshire and a man in his 20s was arrested at an address in Edinburgh.” The Sunday Times said the…

Recently, a short video series titled Escape from the British Museum went viral on the Chinese internet. The three-part series tells the story of how a Chinese artefact – a jade teapot played by a vlogger as a damsel in distress – escapes from the British Museum and finds its way back home to China. The first episode was released on August 30 but, even before that, the trailer attracted much online attention against the backdrop of a theft scandal at the British Museum. In mid-August, the museum announced that…