ModelBest has started the mandatory tutoring process for a potential mainland China initial public offering, marking a new financing step for a company built around smaller AI models designed to run locally.
ByteDance has reportedly created a top-level department dedicated to AI data and safety, a move that would place data sourcing, synthetic data, cleaning, standards, and quality evaluation alongside its major AI and consumer-product groups. TechNode, citing IT Home, reported that the unit sits alongside Seed, Flow, and Douyin.
XPeng is trying to bring a portion of robotaxi-style intelligence into ordinary consumer vehicles. The Guangzhou automaker used the unveiling of its G9L flagship SUV to preview VLA 6.3.0, a new version of its visual-language-action driving system. According to Pandaily’s report, the update adds Level 4-grade robotaxi-style features including curbside parking and campus-roam navigation.
DeepSeek’s latest hiring push offers a window into the infrastructure behind China’s AI race. The Hangzhou-based company is recruiting for an IDC data-center team across Beijing, Hangzhou, and Ulanqab, covering planning, construction, testing, and operations.
Manus has said it will soon resume operating as an independent company after separating from Meta, ending a corporate arrangement that began with Meta’s acquisition of the AI-agent company on December 29, 2025.
A fund backed by China’s top memory-chip maker has taken a stake in a Guangzhou semiconductor company pursuing an alternative path for advanced logic. Changcun Industry Investment Fund, which is backed by Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., or YMTC, and the Hubei Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, has become a shareholder in SOI Micro.
China’s AI startup race has gained a new company with an unusually ambitious brief. Junyang Lin, a former technical leader on Alibaba’s Qwen team, has announced Pragmatik Labs, a Shanghai-based venture that says it will build agents for both digital and physical worlds.
Zhipu is showing what China’s AI competition looks like after the model launch. The Beijing-based developer of the GLM family has reportedly approached seven million registered users on its model-as-a-service platform, roughly two million more than in early July.
Honor has chosen an unusually literal way to put robotics into a smartphone. The Chinese handset maker scheduled the domestic release of its Robot Phone for August 12, presenting a device that combines a conventional phone with a motorized gimbal camera and AI-assisted subject tracking.
Tencent’s second-quarter results show an AI strategy moving from demonstration to costly deployment. The Shenzhen company reported 204.8 billion yuan in quarterly revenue, up 11 percent year over year, but its most revealing number was capital expenditure: 52.8 billion yuan, a 176 percent increase.
