China’s tax agency cracks down on influencers, online merchants amid shrinking revenue

China’s tax agency cracks down on influencers, online merchants amid shrinking revenue

China’s tax authority on Friday published a draft regulation that would require the operators of e-commerce, short-video and social media platforms to report the income of merchants and influencers. Under the current draft, which is soliciting public feedback until January 19, internet platform operators must report the identity, income and other tax-related information about revenue-generating … Read more

Alibaba to sponsor Lunar Year Spring Festival Gala to reach China’s thrifty consumers

Alibaba to sponsor Lunar Year Spring Festival Gala to reach China’s thrifty consumers

Alibaba Group Holding has won the sponsorship for the 2025 Spring Festival Gala show, China’s most-watched event of the year, as the e-commerce giant reaches out to consumers to regain growth momentum. The Hangzhou-based company signed a deal with China Media Group (CMG), which owns state broadcaster China Central Television, to be the “exclusive e-commerce … Read more

Alibaba’s DingTalk launches new service bundled with AI features to boost productivity

Alibaba’s DingTalk launches new service bundled with AI features to boost productivity

The service called DingTalk 365 offers more than 10 features including AI-powered search, virtual assistant and automated reply, according to a DingTalk post published on Monday on the platform’s public WeChat account. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post. The search feature, for example, uses large language models – the technology underpinning generative AI (GenAI) … Read more

Alibaba CEO eyes greater AI research and development, as firm open sources 100 new LLMs

Alibaba CEO eyes greater AI research and development, as firm open sources 100 new LLMs

Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology backbone of the e-commerce giant, announced the release of more than 100 of its newly launched Qwen 2.5 LLMs to the global open-source community at the opening of the three-day Apsara Conference, its annual flagship event that runs until Saturday. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post. “Alibaba Cloud is … Read more

Tencent super app WeChat strikes fine balance as everyday tool and public-service platform

Tencent super app WeChat strikes fine balance as everyday tool and public-service platform

Super app WeChat, operated by video gaming and social media giant Tencent Holdings, continues to strike a delicate balancing act between its role as a major revenue stream for the Shenzhen-based company and a vital public-service platform in mainland China, according to analysts. With more than 1.3 billion monthly active users (MAUs), the 13-year old … Read more

This new AI video generator just completely outdid Sora

This new AI video generator just completely outdid Sora

Sora’s lead in the generative video space is already in jeopardy, and Meta’s highly anticipated AI hasn’t even been released yet. On Wednesday, Chinese tech titan Kuaishou Technology announced that its Kling AI video-generation system is now available to users around the globe. Kling had officially launched in China last month, but was only available … Read more

Alibaba sees AI talent depart to start own business amid China’s unicorn boom

Alibaba sees AI talent depart to start own business amid China’s unicorn boom

Algorithm engineer Zhou Chang, who worked on the Tongyi Qianwen large language models (LLMs), has decided to leave Alibaba’s cloud computing unit after seven years at the firm, according to two people familiar with the matter. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post. Zhou’s departure was first reported on Wednesday by Chinese media 36Kr. The … Read more

Tencent’s WeChat requires disclosure of AI-generated content to combat misinformation

Tencent’s WeChat requires disclosure of AI-generated content to combat misinformation

“If the content is AI-generated, it must be labelled,” WeChat said on Wednesday via its content-security account, Shanhu – the Chinese word for “coral”. The super app, marketed as Weixin on the mainland, will help identify AI-generated content (AIGC) on the platform by displaying the relevant tag at the bottom of a published post. WeChat … Read more

ByteDance and Kuaishou see exodus of top AI experts to new ventures as China’s unicorn boom looks for next OpenAI

ByteDance and Kuaishou see exodus of top AI experts to new ventures as China’s unicorn boom looks for next OpenAI

Yang Hongxia, who was involved in research and development of large language models (LLMs) at ByteDance, recently left the Beijing-based company to start preparing for her own AI projects, according to a report by Chinese media 36Kr. LLMs are the technology behind generative AI services like ChatGPT. Separately, Fu Ruiji – a tech leader at … Read more