Explore the latest trends in TECH and AI

 OpenAI CEO in the midst of a family controversy: sister sues for sexual assault, family jointly denies allegations" Recently, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was sued by his sister, Ann Altman. She claimed that he sexually assaulted her multiple times between 1997 and 2006. She said that the assaults began when she was just 3 years old and caused her to suffer from long-term psychological problems, such as PTSD and depression. This is the first time Annie has taken such allegations to court. The Altman family quickly issued a joint statement denying all of the allegations. They called the claims "completely untrue" and noted that Anne has been facing serious mental health issues for years. They've been offering financial support and medical help, but Annie has refused to go through with it. Haidilao's move into the Xiaomi Science and Technology Park is a win for the employees of the park, who have long dreamed of a hotpot restaurant.The first Beijing store of Haidilao Cor...

 Tesla is about to launch Grok, its new AI voice assistant, and it's going to make driving a whole lot more fun!In the latest news, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced that all future Tesla cars will support its newest AI assistant, Grok. Grok is a super smart language model developed by Musk's company, xAI, that can understand and respond to your questions and commands in a way that feels just like talking to a real person. You'll be able to chat with Grok in the car, asking questions or requesting features. This is going to make driving so much more fun!They're also working on Grok 3, which is a big step forward in AI technology. It's got ten times the computing power of the previous version and is in the final stages of development. But here's the big question: can the EU stop Musk from getting too involved in European politics? Recently, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been in the news a lot. He is supporting the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD...

 We're delighted to let you know that Honey Snow Ice City has received approval from the SFC! They're planning to issue 73.05 million H shares in Hong Kong. We're thrilled to share the news that Honey Snow Ice City has received approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission for its plan to list in Hong Kong and issue up to 73.05 million H shares. In addition, 12 shareholders will convert approximately 131 million domestic unlisted shares into H shares for circulation. This move is a big step for Honey Snow Ice City in the capital market and is expected to provide a lot of financial support for its future growth. As the largest tea drink chain brand in China, as of September 2024, Honey Snow Ice City has over 44,000 stores at home and abroad. Tencent recently repurchased 3.93 million shares for HK$1.5 billion in a major buyback, the largest since 2006! Tencent Holdings announced on January 7, 2025, that it successfully repurchased 3.93 million Hong Kong-listed shar...

 Amazon is investing a whopping $11 billion in Georgia to grow its cloud and AI infrastructure.Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently shared the exciting news that it's going to invest at least $11 billion in Georgia. This investment is all about expanding its data center infrastructure to support the growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence technologies. We're thrilled to share that this investment is expected to create approximately 550 high-paying jobs, further cementing Georgia's position as a popular region for data centers. According to the report, data center construction in the Atlanta market is set to grow 76% year-over-year by 2024, attracting aggressive investment from tech giants like Google and Microsoft. Whatnot recently raised a whopping $265 million in funding, bringing its valuation to an impressive $5 billion. The live-streaming shopping market is on fire again!Whatnot, a live-streaming shopping platform, recently announced the completion of a rou...

 It looks like Bluesky is about to close its funding, which is great news!  Their valuation has soared to $700 million, and they've managed to attract the attention of Bain Capital Ventures.The social media platform is in the final stages of funding discussions with Bain Capital Ventures. If everything goes as planned, they'll be raising money to bring their valuation to around $700 million. If everything goes as planned, this new round of funding will follow the $15 million Series A round that closed in October 2024 and the $8 million seed round that closed in 2023. Since Donald Trump was elected, the number of people using Bluesky has increased a lot, from a few million in 2023 to 25.9 million in 2024. This shows that it's becoming a strong competitor to X (formerly Twitter).Bluesky is dedicated to providing a decentralized social networking experience and plans to make it even more appealing in the future by adding new features and services. Trump announced that the UAE...

 AMD is putting its heart and soul into helping Absci develop new AI technology for healthcare! AMD, a U.S. semiconductor giant, is investing $20 million in Absci, a drug discovery company. They're teaming up to bring AMD's advanced AI chips to the healthcare industry. This investment, made using a private equity approach, marks AMD's first step into the life sciences sector. AMD plans to optimize Absci's AI drug discovery efforts by providing high-performance Instinct gas pedals and ROCm software.Absci, which currently uses more than 470 AI chips, mostly from its competitor Nvidia, will gradually start using AMD's. Sean McLean, Absci's founder and CEO, said the partnership will significantly enhance Absci's biological modeling capabilities and accelerate the development of antibody therapeutics. Movement Labs is about to close a $100 million funding round at a valuation of $3 billion, which is fantastic news for the company and for the new era of Ether scal...

 TikTok sister app Lemon8 aggressively promotes and encourages users to migrate in response to ban threat With TikTok facing a potential ban, its sister app Lemon8 has begun sponsoring posts on TikTok to encourage users in the U.S. to migrate to Lemon8.Lemon8's integration with TikTok allows users to sign in directly with their TikTok account, making it easy to share content across platforms.Lemon8 is a lifestyle app that combines the features of Instagram and Pinterest features in a lifestyle app that focuses on visual storytelling and community interaction. Since its launch, the app has been downloaded 6.4 million times in the U.S. market, demonstrating its growth potential. “Shark Tank” investor teams up with former Dodgers owner in bid to buy TikTok to avoid injunction Renowned investor Kevin O'Leary is teaming up with former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt in a last-ditch effort to plan a buyout of TikTok's U.S. operations in anticipation of a nationwide ban th...

NVIDIA CEO says quantum computing is still decades away, IonQ and other quantum stocks fall in response Quantum computing concepts have been hit hard in the latest market update, with shares of companies such as IonQ falling sharply in after-hours trading. The reason is that NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said at the International Consumer Electronics Show that practical quantum computers are "very useful" and may take decades to realize. This caused investors to worry about the future of the quantum computing industry, leading to a wave of sell-offs in related stocks.IonQ's shares have fallen from last year's highs, and the company is still facing losses and market uncertainty despite achieving 106 percent revenue growth in the second quarter. NVIDIA CEO says AI chip performance gains surpass Moore's Law with 1,000-fold improvement in a decade At the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES), NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said the company's AI chip performance has improved...

 Las Vegas cyber bombing: suspect actually used ChatGPT to plan attackIn the case of the Tesla Cybertruck bombing in Las Vegas, police have revealed that the suspect, Matthew Liversberg, 37, used the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT to plan the attack in detail before carrying it out.Liversberg used ChatGPT to look up information such as the amount of explosives needed, how to buy fireworks, and how to buy a cell phone without revealing his identity. He drove a Cybertruck on New Year's Day and set it off outside the Trump International Hotel, hurting seven people.The police say that this is the first time in the U.S. that there's been proof that ChatGPT was used to make an explosive device.Liversberg killed himself before the explosion, and the investigation showed that he did not intend to harm others. He saw the incident as a "wake-up call" to society. The exciting news is that the valuation of Anthropic, an AI startup, has soared to an incredible $60 billion...

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) updated its “List of Chinese Military Enterprises” on January 6, 2025, adding 134 Chinese companies to the list, including Tencent Holdings, Ningde Times, Changxin Storage, Mobile Telecom, and drone maker DaoTong Intelligence. Under Section 1260H of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, the list prohibits the U.S. Department of Defense from entering into or renewing contracts with these companies. In response, Tencent said in a statement that its inclusion in the list was “clearly a mistake” and emphasized that the company is not a military enterprise and that the list has no impact on its business. Ningde Times also responded that the company has never been involved in any military-related activities and believes the decision is wrong.

 Tesla CEO Elon Musk's recent rumors of his interest in acquiring English Premier League team Liverpool FC have sparked widespread concern. According to a report by British media outlet Weekend Sports, Musk plans to buy the historic soccer club for about 6 billion pounds. As the richest man in the world, Musk's wealth is estimated to be over $421 billion and the deal will not be a difficult one for him. Liverpool is currently owned by Fenway Sports Group (FSG), which has acquired the team for £300 million since 2010 and now values the team at over £4 billion. Although FSG have yet to publicly state their intention to sell, market rumors continue to swirl and many fans have had a mixed reaction, with some supporting the new investment and others fearing that the club's social values may be compromised. Musk's interest may not only be driven by business considerations, but also by his family background - his grandmother is from Liverpool, which gives him a deep emotional ...

 Dutch semiconductor giant NXP Semiconductors has announced that it will acquire Austrian automotive software development company TTTech Auto for $625 million in cash, in a move designed to enhance its product capabilities in the software-defined vehicle (SDV) space.TTTech Auto specializes in safety-critical systems and its technology will be integrated into NXP's CoreRide platform, enhancing automakers' capabilities in complex system management, performance and safety. The acquisition is expected to give NXP access to approximately 1,100 engineers and TTTech Auto's management team, further strengthening its position in the rapidly growing automotive market. Getty Images and Shutterstock Agree to Merge to Create $37 Billion Visual Content Giant Getty Images and Shutterstock announced a merger agreement on January 7, 2025 that will make the combined company a leader in the visual content industry at a valuation of $37 billion. Under the agreement, Craig Peters, CEO of Getty ...

ByteDance recently set up an overseas short drama business team and launched a short drama app called “Melolo”, marking its first foray into the overseas short drama market. The free app was launched in mid-November 2024 in Southeast Asian markets such as Indonesia and the Philippines to meet the viewing needs of local users, and Melolo offers a variety of short drama genres, including emotional, thriller, suspense, and costume, with high-definition picture quality and built-in subtitles, to enhance the user experience. Apple Plans to Expand Apple News to More Countries to Enhance Local News Coverage Apple recently announced plans to expand its news app Apple News to more countries and is considering establishing local news coverage in the UK. Currently, Apple News attracts about 125 million users per month, mainly from the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia. The expansion is designed to improve advertising effectiveness and enhance partnerships with publishers, helping them find new...

Kai-Fu Lee, the founder of Chinese startup Zero2One, recently strongly denied rumors that the company sold its pre-training team and infrastructure to Aliyun, calling the claims “vicious vilification.” In a Jan. 6 social media post, Kai-Fu Li said that Zero2One has recognized revenue of more than 100 million yuan in 2024 and expects to see multi-fold growth in 2025, and that the company's relationship with Aliyun is a “vicious smear campaign”. He emphasized that the company's cooperation with Aliyun is based on deep technology sharing and business collaboration, not an acquisition relationship. The two companies jointly announced on January 2 the establishment of the “Industrial Big Model Joint Laboratory”, which aims to promote the application of big model technology in real industries. Zuckerberg Follows Musk's Lead, Ditches Fact-Checking, Introduces Community Notes Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that the social media platform will no longer use third-party f...

In 2024, China's auto industry ushered in rapid development, with the market penetration rate of new energy vehicles exceeding 50% for the first time, and ranking first in global auto exports.  According to the latest data, BYD once again won the global new-energy vehicle sales title with 4,272,100 units sold, while Tesla, despite a decline in sales, still maintains the top spot in market capitalization, reaching $1,296.351 billion. Toyota followed closely behind, ranking second with a market capitalization of $262.69 billion. Notably, Xiaomi, with its diversified business and newly launched electric cars, has seen its market capitalization rise sharply to $112.006 billion, and has managed to rank third in the global car company market capitalization rankings.  In addition, BYD and Xiaomi's performance shows the rise of China's own brands in the international market, which is expected to continue to lead the global automotive industry in the coming years.

 The U.S. Department of Justice recently filed documents with the Supreme Court asking to reject President-elect Donald Trump's request to delay the implementation of the TikTok ban.  The ban requires ByteHop to sell its assets in the U.S. by Jan. 19, 2025, or face an injunction. Trump hopes to reach a negotiated settlement with TikTok after his inauguration, but the Department of Justice has said it can only consider Trump's request if ByteDance can demonstrate a likelihood of success.  The Supreme Court is scheduled to argue the case on Jan. 10, which involves significant legal issues of national security and freedom of speech that are of high concern to TikTok and its creators, as the ban could affect the experience of 170 million U.S. users.

At the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2025, NVIDIA Founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang delivered a 90-minute keynote presentation showcasing the company's latest advances and innovations in the areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), and autonomous driving. Jen-Hsun Huang, in front of a crowd of more than 6,000 people in front of the Michelle Boh Super Arena in Las Vegas, reflected on NVIDIA's three-decade history and emphasized the rapid advances in AI. He noted that the evolution of AI has gone through the era of perceptual AI, to generative AI, and now physical AI, which is capable of reasoning, planning, and acting. 1. GeForce RTX 50 Series Graphics Cards A new generation of GPUs: NVIDIA has officially announced the RTX 50 series of graphics cards based on the Blackwell architecture, including the RTX 5070, 5070 Ti, 5080, and 5090, with prices ranging from $549 to $1,999. The 5090 cards will be available on January 30th, with the o...

 Musk's political clout skyrockets as countries around the world bow to Starlink As Elon Musk's political influence reaches new heights with Trump's imminent return to the White House, global resistance to his Starlink satellite network is unraveling. According to Bloomberg, Musk has become one of Trump's chief advisors, a position that has forced governments to reconsider their cooperation with Starlink. Even Musk's home country of South Africa, President Ramaphosa has reached out to him to discuss easing local black ownership requirements to allow Starlink to enter the market. Alex Capri, a lecturer at the National University of Singapore, noted that Musk now has “the backing of the most powerful office in the world,” which has forced many countries to weigh the pros and cons of partnering with StarChain. However, this trend has also raised concerns that Musk's influence is too great, especially in regions such as Taiwan, where Starlink's expansion faces m...

Warren Buffett's First Investment of the New Year Revealed! 12 consecutive days to add a position in this technology stock, has risen more than 10% for the year At the beginning of the year 2025, the “stock god” Warren Buffett again, 12 consecutive trading days to increase positions in the Internet infrastructure services company VeriSign (VeriSign). The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosed the latest documents, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway from December 17, 2024 to January 3, 2025, the cumulative total of about 83 million U.S. dollars spent on nearly 400,000 shares of VeriSign stock. Currently, Berkshire owns nearly 14% of Verisign's outstanding shares, with a total value of over $2.7 billion. Stimulated by this good news, Verisign shares have continued to rise since December 19, 2024, and as of the close of business on January 3, 2025, the company's shares were trading at $205.62, up more than 10% for the year. Analysts believe that Verisign's h...

 United Airlines Accelerates Deployment of Starlink Wi-Fi for First Flight in Spring 2025! Free high-speed Internet access is about to take off United Airlines announced on January 5, 2025 that it is accelerating the deployment of its Starlink Wi-Fi service, with plans to launch it on commercial flights as early as spring 2025. The company will begin testing in February, with the first Starlink-enabled commercial flights expected to depart in the spring on an Embraer E-175 regional jet. United also plans to install Starlink equipment on all of its two-cabin regional fleet by the end of 2025 and have its first mainline aircraft carry Starlink service by the end of the year. The high-speed, low-latency Internet service will be free to all MileagePlus members and will support a variety of applications such as streaming, shopping and gaming. Alibaba partners with Thunderbird Innovation to create “China's version of Meta Glasses” On January 2, 2025, Aliyun, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group...

 World's first! China opens a “super high-speed rail” computing network with zero packet loss over 2000 kilometers, helping the East counts and the West counts. On January 3, 2025, China officially opened the world's first optoelectronic fusion deterministic new computing network infrastructure, marking a major breakthrough in the “East Counts West Counts” project. The facility is built by Jiangsu Future Network Group in cooperation with Zijinshan Laboratory and other units, and the first phase of the project has covered nine cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. This “super high-speed rail” level of computing network has realized a lossless bearing without power relay over 2000 kilometers, with single-wave single-port transmission rate as high as 400G and 800G, jitter of the whole network lower than 5 microseconds, packet loss rate less than one in 100,000, and transmission efficiency of more than 90%. Liu Yunjie, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that ...

 OpenAI Founder Releases Mysterious Six-Character Poem, AI Singularity Approaching Sparks Global Concerns At the beginning of the new year of 2025, OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman posted a mysterious six-word poem on social media platform X: “The Singularity is Near; Unknown Directions”, which has sparked a lot of discussion in the global technology community. The short but meaningful verse suggests that artificial intelligence may be on the verge of reaching a “technological singularity,” a tipping point where AI surpasses human intelligence. Altman later explained that the poem could refer to the “simulation hypothesis” or the “inability to know with certainty when the moment of truth will arrive”. Law returns to tech, Jarvis launches AI assistant J1 Assistant On January 5, 2025, Luo Yonghao's AI startup project Jarvis quietly launched an aggregated AI assistant software called J1 Assistant overseas, which currently only supports Android. The biggest highlight of this product i...

 ChatGPT's second birthday was just over a month ago, and now we have entered the next paradigm - the era of models capable of complex reasoning. The New Year always puts people in a reflective mood, and I'd like to share some personal reflections on the journey so far, and some of the insights I've gained along the way. As we get closer to generalized artificial intelligence (AGI), it seems like an important time to look back at the company's progress. There's still a lot to understand, a lot of uncharted territory, and we're still in the early stages. But we have accumulated more knowledge than when we started. We founded OpenAI nearly nine years ago because we believe that general artificial intelligence is possible and that it could be the most impactful technology in human history. We want to figure out how to build it and make it broadly accessible to humanity; we want to make our mark on history. Our ambitions were extremely ambitious, and we were convinc...

Brisk It Launches Zelos 450 Artificially Intelligent Grill with AI-Powered Remote Monitoring of the Grilling Process Brisk It unveiled its newest smart grill at CES, the Zelos 450, an electric wood chip pellet grill that not only features 450 square inches of cooking space, but also comes equipped with Wi-Fi capabilities that allow users to remotely monitor and adjust the grill settings via a mobile app.Priced at $399, the Zelos 450 incorporates generative AI technology that is able to automate the entire grilling process and provide personalized recipes. Its latest Vera 2.0 AI system analyzes pictures of ingredients to help users easily create suitable recipes and sends real-time status updates and alerts during the cooking process to ensure food doesn't burn. Xiaohongshu ushered in the “silver wave”, with the monthly active volume of users over 60 years old exceeding 30 million. The latest data from Xiaohongshu shows that by the end of 2024, the monthly activity of senior users o...

Italy negotiates €1.5 billion secure communications deal with SpaceX, kicking off Europe's largest project The Italian government is in advanced talks with Elon Musk's SpaceX for a five-year secure communications deal worth €1.5 billion ($1.6 billion). The deal aims to provide the Italian government with high-level telephone and internet encryption services covering both civilian and military use, particularly for military communications in the Mediterranean. The project has been in preparation since mid-2023 and has now been approved by the Italian intelligence agencies and the Ministry of Defense. Although the negotiations have not yet been finalized, progress on the agreement has accelerated significantly following a meeting between Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Macron accuses Musk of meddling in German election, says he supports reactionary movement In a recent speech, French President Emmanuel Macron publicly accused billionai...

 Disney and FuboTV enter into a strategic merger to reshape the online live TV market Disney and FuboTV recently announced a merger agreement to integrate Disney's Hulu + Live TV business into FuboTV to form a new virtual multi-channel video distribution platform. Under the agreement, Disney will own 70% of the combined company, while FuboTV will own 30%. This merger is expected to provide consumers with a wider selection of programs, combining the strengths of both companies to attract more subscribers. The combined company will continue to operate under the Fubo and Hulu + Live TV brands, aiming to become the second largest digital pay-TV provider after YouTube TV, with about 6 million subscribers. Singapore's Digital Edge Successfully Raises $1.6 Billion to Fuel Data Center Expansion in Asia Digital Edge, a Singapore-based data center operator, recently announced that it has successfully raised more than US$1.6 billion in financing, including approximately US$640 million in ...

 Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry) recently announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2024, showing that its revenue reached a record NT$2.13 trillion (US$64.6 billion), up 15.2 percent year-on-year and exceeding the market's expectation of a 13 percent increase. The company said strong artificial intelligence (AI) server demand was the main factor driving the growth, especially in its cloud and networking products divisions. In December 2024, Foxconn's single-month revenue even reached NT$654.83 billion, up 42.3% year-on-year. The company is optimistic about the future despite flat sales growth of consumer electronics products such as the iPhone.

 China's Trina Solar Achieves Another Record High Solar Conversion Efficiency Trina Solar (China) recently announced that its new n-type fully passivated heterojunction (HJT) solar module has achieved a global record conversion efficiency of 25.44% in laboratory tests. This achievement, certified by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Research in Germany, signifies Trina Solar's leadership in solar technology.HJT technology improves the overall efficiency of solar cells by covering defects on their surfaces, making solar power generation cheaper and smaller. Trina Solar Chairman Jifan Gao said the company will continue to increase its R&D efforts in passivation solar technology to maintain its technological leadership. Lucid Motors Successfully Delivers 9,029 Electric Vehicles, Exceeds Production Targets Lucid Motors recently announced that the company produced 9,029 electric vehicles in 2024, successfully achieving its production goal of 9,000 units. Deliveries for t...

Baidu Wiku recently announced that the monthly active users of its AI function have exceeded 90 million, making it the online document platform with the largest number of users in China, second only to ChatGPT's 310 million. Since its comprehensive reorganization, Baidu Wiku has added more than 100 new features, greatly enhancing user experience and content creation. As users' recognition of AI tools increased, the payment rate grew 60% year-on-year, and the number of paid users reached 40 million. Youbu and Lyft restarted their self-driving program, and joined hands with Waymo and May Mobility to lay out the future of mobility Against the backdrop of the rapid development of self-driving technology, U.S.-based online taxi giant Lyft recently announced a partnership with a number of companies in order to re-layout the self-driving cab market.Lyft will partner with Intel's Mobileye, self-driving shuttle company May Mobility, and Nexar, a maker of smart driving recorders, wit...

 In his latest blog post, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says the company is now confident it can build artificial general intelligence (AGI) in the traditional sense, and is shifting its focus to developing superintelligence. Predicting that 2025 will be the year that AI agents first “join the workforce,” which will dramatically change business productivity, Altman emphasized that superintelligent tools have the potential to dramatically accelerate scientific discovery and innovation beyond current human capabilities, thereby contributing to the prosperity and affluence of society.

ByteDance recently made an announcement that it plans to invest 160 billion RMB by 2025, dedicated to building an autonomous and controllable large-scale data center cluster.  Among them, 90 billion yuan will be dedicated to the procurement of artificial intelligence (AI) arithmetic to support its in-depth research and application in the field of AI; 70 billion yuan will be used for the construction of IDC infrastructure and the upgrade of network equipment.  This strategy not only highlights ByteDance's ambition in AI technology, but will also further enhance its competitive advantage and technical barriers in the industry.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently revealed on social media that the company's ChatGPT Pro subscription service is facing losses due to user usage far exceeding expectations. He stated, “The crazy thing is that we're currently losing money on OpenAI Pro subscriptions!  People are using it more than we expected.” ChatGPT Pro was launched last December for $200 per month, offering virtually unlimited access and more computing power.  However, OpenAI's operating costs have risen as the number of subscribers has skyrocketed, and it is expected to face a $5 billion loss in 2024.

  BOT Nimble's core technical capabilities are reflected in the high efficiency and flexibility of its robot system. Through large-scale data training and customized hardware design, Nimble's robots can quickly adapt to different environments and be seamlessly integrated into existing warehouse management systems without the need to modify the code. This "plug-and-play" advantage enables its technology to be deployed quickly and at a low cost. In addition, the company also improves operational reliability through an AI framework combined with human supervision, solving the instability problem of traditional robots when handling complex products. In terms of financing, Nimble recently completed a $106 million Series C financing, and the company's valuation reached $1 billion. This round of financing was led by FedEx and established a strategic cooperation relationship with Cedar Pine LLC. As part of the cooperation, FedEx plans to use Nimble's fully automated t...