Month: April 2026

At a congressional hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday, lawmakers and experts accused China of buying “what they can” and stealing “what they cannot” in the global artificial intelligence (AI) race, while warning the United States’ immigration and research policies could be hindering innovation necessary to stay ahead. “The pattern is clear. China is dependent on our tech stack to continue their AI development. China is willing to buy what they can, and steal what they cannot, to advance their AI ambitions,” said John Moolenaar, House Select Committee on China…

Chinese researchers have developed a new diamond-copper material that they say can improve the cooling efficiency of artificial intelligence (AI) data centres by up to 80 per cent. The functional carbon materials team – from the Ningbo Institute of Industrial Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) – said the composite material had already been deployed in an AI computing node in Zhengzhou in Henan province, China Science Daily reported. The global computing industry’s pursuit of AI breakthroughs is hitting a “thermal wall” – overheating caused by the significantly…

Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a 10-day ceasefire starting on Thursday, US President Donald Trump said, in a move that could ease some of the tension straining Washington’s temporary truce with Tehran. Trump announced the ceasefire, which comes into effect at 5pm EST, following what he described as “excellent conversations” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun. “These two Leaders have agreed that in order to achieve PEACE between their Countries, they will formally begin a 10 Day CEASEFIRE at 5 P.M. EST,” he wrote…

China has assured the United States that it will not supply weapons to Iran during the current ceasefire in the Middle East conflict, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday, as Washington stepped up pressure on Tehran to agree to a broader peace deal brokered by Pakistan. Speaking at a Pentagon briefing, Hegseth said Beijing had conveyed the assurance directly, amid heightened concerns in Washington about external support for Iran during the fragile pause in fighting. “Trump has a strong and direct relationship with Xi. They communicated on that,…

Japan’s most extensive participation to date in a counter-landing and missile defence exercise in the Philippines signals its “priorities” in deterring Beijing in a Taiwan contingency, according to analysts. Japan’s Joint Staff announced on Tuesday that its Self-Defence Forces (SDF) would deploy about 1,400 personnel, multiple warships and aircraft, as well as Type 88 anti-ship missile systems for the Balikatan exercise, an annual large-scale joint military drill between the Philippines and the United States. The troop deployment marks Japan’s first active participation in the Balikatan exercise, which runs from April…

We have selected seven of the most interesting and important news stories covering US-China relations from the past few weeks. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Trump-Xi summit shaped by uncertainty, not strategy: experts Illustration: Lau Ka-kuen The lead-up for the consequential Trump-Xi summit has been compressed and rather disjointed given the Middle East war and Trump’s preference for making last-minute decisions based on his “gut”. One source told the South China Morning Post: “You have the most predictable president and the…

Japan has pledged US$10 billion to its Asian neighbours in energy support, in what analysts say is a strategic bid to counter China’s regional influence and position itself as a reliable partner as the Iran war upends global oil markets and supply chains. However, one observer argued that the move’s impact might be limited, given Japan’s inability to alter the ground realities in the Middle East and Southeast Asian countries’ instinct for strategic hedging over picking sides. Unveiled by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Tokyo on Wednesday following a…

A wave of companies, from the start-up launched by artificial intelligence “godmother” Li Fei-Fei to the largest Chinese tech firms, are racing to introduce their latest approaches to world models – an emerging field aimed at extending AI beyond language processing to learning from and comprehending physical reality. Alibaba Group Holding on Thursday unveiled Happy Oyster, which it called an open-ended world model designed for real-time and “flowy” virtual world creation and interaction, according to a statement from the e-commerce group’s Alibaba Token Hub (ATH) business unit, newly formed to…

Trade tensions between the US and China have made companies around the world less keen to invest in either country, with the United States almost twice as unpopular, according to a new report from Allianz Trade. The report, based on an annual survey by the Paris-based international insurance company, said US-China decoupling had not materialised, but investment intention towards China had dropped “significantly” to 24 per cent of survey respondents, down from 53 per cent a year ago. The survey tracked corporate expectations for exports, global trade and supply chains…

Beijing has raised the limit on banks’ overseas lending – a move that analysts say will support Chinese firms in outbound investment expansions while helping to stabilise the yuan. Regulators raised the overseas-loan leverage ratio for foreign banks in China and their joint ventures with Chinese lenders from 0.5 to 1.5 on Wednesday, according to a statement published by the central bank and the foreign exchange regulator. In a separate statement, the regulators said that the new rules would better address the financing needs of firms expanding abroad, as overseas-loan…