China

Factbox - Governments’ Efforts to Regulate AI Tools

Italy’s data protection agency said on Wednesday it would lift its temporary ban on OpenAI’s ChatGPT artificial intelligence (AI) technology if the U.S. company complied with data protection and privacy demands by end-April. Rapid advances in AI such as Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT are complicating governments’ efforts to agree on laws governing the use of the […]

Ford Will Retool Ontario Factory to Build EVs Starting Next Year

 Ford Motor Co said Tuesday that next year it will start retooling its sport utility vehicle assembly plant in Oakville, Ontario to produce electric vehicles, fulfilling a promise made to Canada’s Unifor union during contract bargaining in 2020. Ford plans to begin overhauling the Oakville complex in the second quarter of 2024, idling most of […]

IMF Warns Bank Failures Highlight ‘Perilous’ Financial Stability Risks

The International Monetary Fund warned on Tuesday of a “perilous combination of vulnerabilities” in financial markets, saying participants’ failing to adequately prepare for interest rate increases has led to significant uncertainty about the health of the financial system. Moreover, the global lender said U.S. regional banks in particular may warrant closer scrutiny after the largest […]

Meta’s Whatsapp Rolls Out Business Payment Tool in Brazil

Meta Platforms on Tuesday began rolling out its payments tool to small and medium-sized firms through its WhatsApp messaging platform in Brazil, part of Meta’s strategy to use the Brazilian market as a key test space for business messaging. The development of business messaging has become all the more urgent as Meta’s core advertising business […]

France Considering Antitrust Action Against Apple - Axios

France’s antitrust regulator is expected to go ahead soon with an investigation into Apple Inc over complaints tied to changes that the iPhone maker made in 2021 to its app tracking policies, news website Axios reported on Tuesday. French regulators are in favor of issuing a formal “Statement of Objections” to parties involved in the […]

Credit Suisse Pays Back Some Emergency Liquidity, Central Bank Data Suggests

Credit Suisse has already paid back some of the emergency liquidity offered by the Swiss National Bank (SNB), data suggested on Tuesday, signaling an ebbing of the liquidity crisis which triggered the lender’s fall. Sight deposits – cash held by commercial banks overnight with the SNB – fell by 31 billion Swiss francs ($34.3 billion)last […]

Bitcoin Pushes Past $30,000 as Investors Eye End of Rate Rises

Major cryptocurrency bitcoin breached the key $30,000 level for the first time in 10 months on Tuesday, adding to its steady gains as investors raised bets that the U.S. Federal Reserve will soon end its aggressive monetary tightening campaign. Bitcoin peaked at $30,438 in Asian trade and was last 2% higher at $30,262. It has […]

U.S Proposes to Slash EV Mileage Ratings to Meet Fuel Economy Rules

The U.S. Energy Department (DOE) on Monday proposed reducing electric vehicles’ (EV) mileage ratings to meet government fuel economy requirements, a move that could force automakers to sell more low-emissions cars or improve conventional models.  DOE wants to significantly revise how it calculates the petroleum-equivalent fuel economy rating for electric and plug-in electric hybrids for […]

Alibaba Shows off Its Generative AI Tech, to Roll Out in All Apps

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd on Tuesday showed off its generative AI model – its version of the tech that powers chatbot sensation ChatGPT – and said it would be integrated into all of the company’s apps in the near future. Called Tongyi Qianwen, the AI large language model drafted invitation letters, planned trip itineraries and […]