DeepSeek Nears a RMB100 Billion Round, With CATL and Tencent as Biggest Backers
Reuters says more than 15 investors are joining at a RMB500 billion pre-money valuation, as the round doubles its original RMB50 billion target.
DAILY BRIEF · 10 STORIES
The October 23, 2026 brief
China’s CSI 300 Enters Bear Market as AI Selloff Wipes US$2.4 Trillion From Stocks
The benchmark closed 20% below its June high on Thursday, while Hong Kong’s tech index fell 5.03% to its lowest level since September 2024.
Microsoft Ties China-Linked Hackers Using AI Agent Tool ARTEX to ConnectWise Breach
Storm-0940 used stolen ConnectWise app identities to try more than 2,250 Microsoft 365 tenants, at up to 2,900 sign-in attempts per minute.
MIIT-Led Five-Year Plan Calls for AI-Native Basic Products Across China’s Industrial Base
Eight agencies set 22 tasks in seven areas to bring China’s components, materials and basic software to an internationally advanced level by 2030.
iFlytek Launches Spark X2.6, Saying It Was Trained Entirely on Chinese Compute
The model is priced at RMB0.9 per million input tokens for a limited time, and a 4-billion-parameter edge version is already on Hugging Face.
China’s JCET Lifts 2026 Investment Plan to RMB18.2 Billion as Q3 Profit Rises 60%
The chip packager’s computing-electronics revenue grew 54% in nine months and now makes up 30.9% of sales, as fixed-asset spending rises to RMB17.31 billion.
Humanoid Maker Noetix Robotics Files Confidentially for Hong Kong IPO, Bloomberg Says
The CATL-backed Beijing startup, maker of the RMB9,998 Bumi robot, could raise several hundred million US dollars and list as early as 2027.
XPENG Says Its IRON Humanoid Can Now Predict Human Moves Six Seconds Ahead
The robot re-reasons every 0.2 seconds on three in-house Turing chips, as XPENG holds to a goal of mass production by the end of 2026.
Geely-Linked Qianli Technology Says Its Driver Assistance Is Now in 1 Million Cars
Chairman Yin Qi told a Chongqing AI conference that the Qianli Haohan system reached the mark in 18 months across 16 models, with 93.9% of buyers activating it.
Unitree Launches a Global Physical AI Contest and Sets Three Priorities for Its Robots
Founder Wang Xingxing pledged tens of millions of yuan a year for an eight-track contest, and named mass production, small models and compute as his focus.