Google Cross-border E-commerce Acceleration Center (Guangzhou) has settled in Guangzhou International Finance Center (IFC) in Zhujiang New Town, Guangzhou, with an opening ceremony held yesterday (19th).

Supported by the Guangzhou Municipal Commerce Bureau, the Tianhe District People's Government and Yuexiu Group, the center will leverage Guangzhou's strengths in overseas expansion across industries such as intelligent manufacturing, gaming, fast fashion apparel, beauty and personal care, providing cross-border e-commerce enterprises with full-chain services including precise overseas marketing, international brand building, digital technology empowerment and global traffic matching.
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Volcengine announced that Tesla, Inc. (TSLA.US) has tapped into the Doubao large model. The vehicle system is equipped with the Doubao real-time conversational model and an end-to-end voice interaction architecture, making the in-car system no longer a walkie-talkie style "Q&A" tool, but a more natural, continuous and proactive interface.
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Rising memory chip prices are casting varying impacts on India's smartphone market. As costs soar, Chinese brands are finding it difficult to maintain low-price strategies, while mid- to high-end brands such as Samsung and Apple (AAPL.US) are benefiting from consumers shifting toward higher-priced smartphones and improved financing plans that enhance affordability, experts told CNBC.

Experts said the era of smartphones priced below USD150 is nearing an end. After existing inventories are depleted, new models with similar features will need to be priced significantly higher to reflect rising memory costs.

Neil Shah, Co-founder of Counterpoint Research, said prices of new Chinese smartphones in India may rise from below USD150 previously to between USD200 and USD250, while prices in the sub-USD150 category have already lifted by as much as 40%.

IDC reported last week that smartphone shipments in India dropped to 64.2 million units in 1H26, with the entry-level segment posting a plunge. Sales volume dropped 7.9% YoY, but sales value added 3.6% YoY as the average selling price rose 14.4% YoY to a record USD315.

IDC said Chinese smartphone brands are finding it difficult to persuade "price-sensitive consumers" to purchase devices at higher prices, leading to notable sales declines. During the same period, the iPhone 17 became the top-shipping smartphone model for two consecutive quarters.

As of the June quarter, Vivo's shipments sank 13.9% YoY, Oppo lost 8.5%, XIAOMI-W (01810.HK) declined 10%, and Realme fell 14.2%, IDC data showed. OnePlus, which focuses on the premium market, recorded the smallest downfall at 2.5% YoY.

Shah said when memory chip prices began rising last year, many Chinese smartphone brands shifted to using chips from UNISOC and CXMT (688825.SH) to temporarily maintain market share, but the arrangement is difficult to sustain.

He noted that CXMT has recently raised funds to expand production capacity to serve China's AI and data center markets, with resources shifting toward high-end products.
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Jeff Gundlach, CEO of DoubleLine Capital, criticized NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) for signing memorandums of understanding with six major financial institutions to raise more than USD500 billion for AI infrastructure, opining Wall Street is trying to turn AI chips into an investable asset class, which could signal that risk markets are approaching a peak.

Gundlach questioned whether it is wise to use rapidly evolving technology as collateral for long-term borrowing. He believed NVIDIA's fundraising plan is unlikely to stand the test of time, comparing the situation to using a warehouse full of bananas as collateral for 30-year asset-backed securities, even if those bananas are newly cultivated bananas with unknown longevity.
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Even if AI development ultimately meets investors' expectations, US tech stocks could still undergo a correction, potentially threatening financial stability in the euro area, European Central Bank (ECB) economists said in a blog post.

A correction in the tech sector would not necessarily be caused by previous investor hype, and such a pullback would still be expected even if current valuations are at reasonable levels.

The economists noted that households in the euro area have around EUR440 billion of exposure to US tech stocks, mainly through investment funds, while insurance companies and pension funds also have significant exposure to the "Magnificent 7".
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Apple Inc. (AAPL.US) plans to complete price adjustments for the global iPhone 17 series before the end of August, with the price increase capped at no more than RMB1,000, Chinese media reported.

The pricing tweak could reportedly reference Apple's previous price hike plan in Japan. Previously, the top-storage version of the iPhone 17 Pro Max in Japan saw its price rise from JPY329,800 to JPY354,800, representing an increase of JPY25,000 (approximately RMB1,060).

The price of the iPhone 17 was raised to JPY142,800, up by JPY13,000 (approximately RMB551). Products including the Apple Watch Series 11, Ultra 3 and the AirPods series also saw simultaneous price increases.
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Meta hopes to take a leading position in the open-source AI field, while Chinese tech behemoth Alibaba has once again demonstrated the intensity of market competition.

Alibaba on Monday launched an AI model that can run on consumer-grade hardware such as laptops, an area that has become a new battleground for AI model developers.

The company also opened the weights of its strongest model to maintain its leadership in open-source technology.

In announcing the new model, Alibaba said Qwen3.8-27B has outstanding capabilities in coding, professional work, research and long-horizon agent tasks.

Alibaba also said it has released the weights for its strongest model, Qwen3.8 Max, namely the calculations and rules that determine how the AI operates and behaves.

Alibaba has established a leadership position in the open-weight AI field, while other Chinese companies such as DeepSeek and Moonshot AI are also major participants.
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NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) disclosed last Friday (14th) that its stake in Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX.US), owned by Elon Musk, was valued at approximately USD21 billion, as of the end of 2Q.

In a filing submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the chipmaker said it held 122.8 million Class A shares of SpaceX, which completed its public market debut in June.

SpaceX shares closed at USD140 on Friday, down from USD170.86 at the end of June, reducing the value of NVIDIA's holdings to approximately USD17.2 billion.

This is NVIDIA's second-largest holding after its stake in Intel Corporation (INTC.US), which is currently valued at about USD22 billion, down from USD30 billion at the end of the quarter. The investment, held for less than a year, generated substantial returns compared with NVIDIA's USD5 billion investment cost.

According to FactSet data, NVIDIA is the sixth-largest investor in SpaceX. Musk is the largest shareholder, with holdings valued at about USD850 billion. Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL.US) ranks second with a stake worth about USD78 billion.
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Apple Inc. (AAPL.US) is collaborating with BABA-W (09988.HK) to develop an AI model tailored for the China market, with the model being trained with support from Alibaba, Reuters, citing people familiar with the matter, reported.

Apple's latest approach differs from its previous practice. Previously, Apple tended to use models from domestic partners to introduce generative AI features into iPhones and other devices sold in China.

Apple's AI toolkit, Apple Intelligence, is purportedly expected to be officially launched in China in the coming months alongside updates to the iOS operating system.

BABA-W's share price moved lower with the broader market today, last reporting at HKD119.4, down 2.05%, with turnover of 33.2357 million shares involving HKD3.974 billion.
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LENOVO GROUP (00992.HK)'s adjusted net profit for the first fiscal quarter ended June spiked 176%. Chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing said the group may achieve its USD100 billion revenue target ahead of schedule in this financial year with the goal to pursue even higher profit.

Lenovo CFO Winston Cheng said the group's medium-term net profit margin target is around 5%, while the long-term goal is to achieve 8% or above.

Yang said he does not see an AI bubble emerging and assumed AI demand will continue to grow. Demand growth for memory products is expected to continue at least until the end of next year. Lenovo is currently in a favorable position to adjust early-stage pricing in a timely manner when raw material costs rise.

Although the market believes the group's strong earnings growth is mainly propelled by AI demand, AI business currently accounts for only a small portion of the group's operations, with traditional computing still remaining the core business, he added.

The group's current server order backlog exceeds USD50 billion, while the amount that can ultimately be converted into orders will depend on supply chain capabilities, Yang said.

Yang added the group is cooperating with NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) and plans to launch consumer AI PC products equipped with RTX series chips later this year.
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