Global Pulse

分类： technology

  • India’s domestic workers go online as instant services boom

    India’s domestic workers go online as instant services boom

    India’s vast informal domestic work sector, which employs roughly 30 million people, is undergoing a tech-driven transformation as a new wave of startups move the industry online, mirroring the disruptive growth of ride-hailing platforms. The shift promises better pay and flexible working arrangements for workers, though it has also sparked criticism from labor advocates who warn that the new digital model carries new risks of exploitation.

    At training facilities like Snabbit’s hub in Bengaluru, southern India’s leading technology center, groups of aspiring domestic workers practice time-bound tasks ranging from folding linens to chopping vegetables, preparing to join the app-based service economy. Before going live, all workers complete police background checks and soft skills training covering professional etiquette and customer service standards. Once active on the platform, workers receive job bookings digitally, navigate to assigned homes, and log their working hours directly through their smartphones. Performance is tracked via customer ratings, with algorithm-generated incentives for high scores and penalties for consistent low ratings.

    For many workers, the digital model has delivered a dramatic improvement in earnings. Heena Bibi, a 34-year-old mother of four who joined Snabbit, told reporters she earns roughly 45,000 Indian rupees ($472) per month — three times the income she earned through traditional informal arrangements with multiple private clients. “I get three-four jobs on a normal day. If there’s any festival… more work comes,” she said, highlighting the flexible scheduling that allows workers to match work to their availability rather than being tied to a fixed set of long-term clients. The model has also proven popular with customers: 63-year-old homemaker Atiya Khusro explained that app-based services let her avoid adjusting her entire daily routine around the fixed schedule of a traditional full-time domestic helper, with on-demand support available whenever she needs it.

    One of the largest players in this growing market, Snabbit currently operates across 10 major Indian cities including Delhi and Mumbai, with 20,000 registered workers completing an average of 60,000 individual service jobs daily. Other platforms including Pronto and Urban Company have expanded the model to cover a wide range of on-demand home services: Pronto offers everything from hourly window cleaning to same-day post-party cleanups, while Urban Company provides on-demand access to everything from home repair services to at-home salon treatments.

    Snabbit founder and CEO Aayush Agarwal argues that the platform’s biggest selling point for workers is the flexibility it offers, particularly for women balancing care responsibilities. “Today a mother can send her kid off to school, work at Snabbit for four hours and come back before the kid comes back from school,” he said. Agarwal added that the goal of the platforms is to expand options for both workers and customers, rather than replacing the traditional informal domestic work system, framing the shift as similar to the digitization of the ride-hailing sector that made on-demand transport widely accessible.
    Bhoomika Saigal, Snabbit’s director of training and quality, noted that customer ratings are central to maintaining service standards. “If anybody is less than four (out of five), our training team ensures that we call her and understand what is the problem,” she explained, allowing the platform to address performance gaps and support worker improvement.

    Despite the benefits cited by workers and industry leaders, the new model has not won universal support. Some long-time domestic workers remain wary of the unvetted new clients they would be required to serve through the app. Renu Devi, a 38-year-old worker from Uttar Pradesh who has stuck with traditional arrangements, said the existing informal system feels more secure. “I am scared that I might have to go to a house where I don’t know if I will be safe,” she said. “At the moment, I know the people who I work for and I can trust them.”

    Labor advocates have raised broader structural concerns about the gig-based model, arguing that it simply replaces one form of exploitation with another. Sanjay Gaba, president of the All India Gig and Platform Workers Union, called the app-based system 100 percent unfair. “They don’t have any job security. They don’t have benefits like pension because they are not permanent employees,” he told AFP, pointing to the longstanding lack of regulation in India’s domestic work sector that leaves gig workers without basic labor protections. Even before the shift to digital platforms, domestic work in India has long been associated with stagnant low wages and widespread risks of abuse and exploitation, though low barriers to entry continue to draw millions of rural migrant workers to the sector in search of urban economic opportunity.

  • Why WhatsApp usernames could upset Somalia’s anti-terror fight

    Why WhatsApp usernames could upset Somalia’s anti-terror fight

    As Meta-owned WhatsApp prepares to roll out a new privacy-focused feature that allows users to connect via unique usernames instead of public phone numbers, governments in Somalia and India have issued urgent warnings about potential national security and public safety risks the update may bring. The feature, set to launch globally to WhatsApp’s 3 billion monthly active users in the coming months, lets users adjust or remove their usernames at will, marking a major shift from the platform’s long-standing reliance on linked phone numbers for account identification.

    For Somalia, a nation grappling with a 20-year-long brutal insurgency led by al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group al-Shabab, the new feature poses particularly acute risks. Somalia’s Communications and Technology Minister Ahmed Osman Dirie told the BBC that the change would undermine the country’s existing regulatory framework, which centers on tracking registered phone numbers to counter criminal and extremist activity.

    Dirie emphasized that Somalia operates under a unique economic context: its entire financial ecosystem is heavily dependent on mobile money transactions, making the population disproportionately vulnerable to financial fraud that would be harder to trace with unvetted, untraceable usernames. Beyond financial crime, the minister pointed out that al-Shabab militants already regularly exploit WhatsApp for extremist operations, including extortion rings, propaganda dissemination, and intimidation of civilians. In 2024 alone, Somalia’s intelligence service dismantled 20 al-Shabab-linked WhatsApp groups used for criminal activity and disabled mobile data for roughly 2,500 associated phone numbers – actions that would be far more difficult to execute without linked phone number data, Dirie argued.

    Somalia is not alone in its concerns. Earlier this month, India – WhatsApp’s largest single market with more than 850 million active users – raised identical objections to the feature. Indian regulators warned that allowing anonymous access via usernames would create new opportunities for bad actors to carry out online fraud, identity impersonation, and other illicit crimes, and formally requested that Meta delay the rollout until all government concerns are addressed through full consultation.

    In response to the criticism, Meta has noted that the feature is not yet active, and clarified that all users will still be required to register a valid phone number to create a WhatsApp account, even after the feature launches. The company also added that the new username tool includes built-in security safeguards designed to prevent scam activity.

    Despite these assurances, Dirie said the Somali government has already reached out directly to Meta to share its concerns, and is pushing for additional concrete guarantees. The minister is calling on Meta to prove that hiding phone numbers will not erode the digital traceability that Somali authorities depend on to combat crime and terrorism, and to outline specific protections tailored to Somalia’s high-risk context. “If they prove that, when we discuss if we put those safeguards in place, then we will not have any issue with rolling out the new feature,” Dirie told the BBC.

    Industry analysts and security experts have weighed in on the debate, framing the conflict as a core tension between user privacy and state-level security needs. Moses Kemibaro, a Nairobi-based technology blogger focused on African digital markets, explained that the shift to usernames is a deliberate evolution of WhatsApp’s privacy model, bringing it in line with other Meta platforms such as Instagram, where user identities are not tied to public phone numbers. “It’s almost saying that this can work irrespective of the phone number and just give you a single identity,” Kemibaro noted. While he acknowledged the feature’s privacy benefits for users, he confirmed that governments hold valid concerns about the potential for an increase in scams and criminal activity, and said Meta must clearly explain to regulators how they can still trace criminal activity back to individual users even with the new username system.

    Kenyan security analyst George Musamali echoed that perspective, noting that the change comes in response to long-standing user complaints about unwanted access to personal phone numbers through WhatsApp groups. Musamali also pointed out that the shift away from public phone numbers can also protect users from arbitrary surveillance by governments that target political opponents using social media data – a core priority for Meta as it faces growing global pressure to strengthen user privacy. Ultimately, Musamali argued that many governments may be jumping to premature conclusions, and that a balanced solution that addresses both privacy rights and legitimate security concerns is achievable.

  • China’s AI, robotics tech draw praise in Canada

    China’s AI, robotics tech draw praise in Canada

    The 31st iteration of the Federation of International Robot-soccer Association (FIRA) RoboWorld Cup & AI Summit made history on July 17, launching its first-ever Canadian edition in Markham, Ontario. Over five days of intense robotics competitions, technical showcases, and policy discussions, the event drew more than 1,000 attendees spanning over 20 countries and regions, shining a global spotlight on China’s groundbreaking advances in artificial intelligence and robotics that have earned widespread international acclaim.

    Samia Karimi, president of FIRA Canada, opened up about China’s standing in the global AI and robotics ecosystem in an interview with China Daily, emphasizing that the country has solidified its position as a global leader in both rapidly evolving sectors. “China is always very strong in the AI industry and also in robotics,” Karimi noted, adding that Chinese competing teams consistently demonstrate extraordinary dedication to pushing technical boundaries and delivering strong performance at international events. “We don’t know who will be the winner, but Chinese teams are always working so hard to get the best results,” she said.

    Among the Chinese delegations taking part in the 2026 event were two young competitors from Chengdu, Sichuan province: 15-year-old Wang Yichen and 16-year-old Qiu Zeshui, who stepped into the U19 division to test their skills against older student teams from across the globe. Both teenagers have spent years studying robotics engineering, but the international competition brought unforeseen challenges that set it apart from many domestic contests they had previously entered. Unlike domestic events that share full task details with competitors in advance, FIRA RoboWorld Cup teams only receive broad parameters ahead of time, requiring flexible preparation for multiple possible scenarios.

    “There were many difficulties,” Wang explained in an interview on site. “We didn’t know what the tasks would be, so we could only make guesses and prepare based on previous years’ competitions.” For Wang, this first-time experience competing alongside top young robotics talents from around the world also brought a surprising realization: the technical gap between young Chinese competitors and their global peers is far smaller than he had anticipated going into the event. “The gap isn’t that big,” he said.

    Maria Sun, co-chair of the 2026 FIRA RoboWorld Cup, framed the event as a microcosm of a larger global shift in AI development: as the technology accelerates at an unprecedented pace, cross-border collaboration has become not just beneficial, but essential, even as rapid growth brings new shared governance challenges that no single nation can address in isolation. Key pressing issues including AI privacy protection, algorithmic transparency, and systemic AI safety demand coordinated action from national governments, private industry stakeholders, and academic researchers across the world, Sun argued.

    She emphasized that sustainable, inclusive global AI progress must be built on a foundation of open exchange, not technological isolation. “AI belongs to all humanity. That is why sharing and cooperation are essential,” Sun stated. By gathering young innovators from more than 20 countries to compete, collaborate, and exchange ideas, the FIRA RoboWorld Cup embodies this open, collaborative philosophy, she added.

    Sun also highlighted China’s ongoing efforts to expand AI development partnerships with developing nations as a particularly encouraging contribution to global AI equity. “China’s efforts to promote AI cooperation with developing countries are very encouraging. International exchanges like these help bring more countries into the AI era and create opportunities for broader collaboration,” she said. She added that China’s commitment to openness in AI research and deployment will deliver widespread benefits to technological progress across the globe. “Today, China is one of the global leaders in artificial intelligence, and its continued openness will help drive innovation and international cooperation,” she noted.

    Former Canadian senator Hu Zixiu echoed these calls for coordinated global action, stressing that cross-border collaboration will remain indispensable as AI technologies continue to reshape industries and societies worldwide. Hu argued that the global community must work collectively to build a universally accepted governance framework for AI that can guide responsible development across all regions. “Countries around the world need to work together to establish a common governance system for AI. It should be a framework that all countries recognize and can follow,” Hu said.

  • Diamonds and ‘cab to orbit’: The rocket aiming to transform India’s space ambitions

    Diamonds and ‘cab to orbit’: The rocket aiming to transform India’s space ambitions

    India’s burgeoning private space industry is poised for a landmark moment this Saturday, as homegrown space technology unicorn Skyroot Aerospace prepares to conduct the country’s first privately-led orbital rocket launch from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s launch complex in Sriharikota, southern India.

    Founded in 2018 by two former ISRO engineers, Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka, Skyroot has recently hit a major milestone of its own, becoming India’s first space tech unicorn with a $1.1 billion valuation. Its debut orbital mission, codenamed Aagman – Sanskrit for “arrival” – will see the seven-storey Vikram-1 rocket lift off at 06:00 GMT, bound for a 450-kilometer Low Earth Orbit (LEO). If the 16-minute flight achieves all its objectives, Skyroot will make global history: India will become only the third nation, after the United States and China, to host a privately owned company capable of placing payloads into orbital space.

    Vikram-1, named for Vikram Sarabhai, widely revered as the founding father of India’s national space program, is a compact small-lift launch vehicle designed to carry payloads of up to 350 kilograms. It is the centerpiece of Skyroot’s ambitious vision to revolutionize access to space, which the company frames as a “cab service to orbit” – a direct contrast to the current industry model that forces small satellite operators to share space on large, infrequently scheduled rockets and wait months or even years for a launch slot.

    “Right now, getting to space is a major bottleneck for small satellite operators,” Chandana, Skyroot’s co-founder and CEO, explained in comments to the BBC. “Instead of being forced to wait for a large rocket with a fixed schedule like you wait for a train, we let customers book a dedicated launch tailored exactly to their satellite and required orbit. If you just need to go to a specific location, you don’t book a whole train – you book a cab, just like an Uber. That’s exactly what we’re offering for space.”

    A successful launch will position Skyroot’s business model as a South Asian parallel to U.S. small-launch leader Rocket Lab, filling a gap in the global market for flexible, on-demand access to LEO. Saturday’s test mission will carry six separate payloads to orbit, blending cutting-edge scientific instrumentation with deeply symbolic tributes to India’s space heritage.

    Among the functional payloads are a German commercial satellite, an Earth observation camera, and a robotic prototype arm designed to test space debris removal technology – a pressing priority for the long-term sustainability of orbital operations. The mission’s two symbolic payloads, however, have sparked widespread public interest across India. One is a 3D-printed lotus sculpture crafted from lab-grown diamonds, dubbed “Cosmic Bloom” and developed in partnership with Indian firm Cosmos Diamonds. Designed as an artistic celebration of India’s creative innovation, the piece nods to the iconic line “like a diamond in the sky” from the classic nursery rhyme *Twinkle Twinkle Little Star*. The second tribute carries three micro-sculptures, each smaller than a grain of rice, honoring three of India’s most iconic scientific pioneers: Vikram Sarabhai, Nobel Prize-winning physicist C.V. Raman, and renowned aerospace engineer and former Indian president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

    “We stand on the shoulders of the early visionaries who built India’s space program,” Chandana said of the tribute. “This is our way of honoring the three great minds that shaped where we are today.”

    Saturday’s launch marks the first of two planned test flights Skyroot will conduct in 2026, ahead of a full commercial launch rollout planned for 2027. The company already has the capacity to manufacture one rocket per month at its Hyderabad production facility, and is targeting a majority share of the global small satellite launch market long-term. Chandana projects that 70-80% of Skyroot’s future business will come from international customers, spanning critical sectors from agriculture, fisheries and disaster management to communications, navigation and national security.

    Skyroot’s trailblazing mission comes amid a rapid expansion of India’s private space sector, which followed a 2020 government policy reform opening space activities to private enterprise and granting access to ISRO’s infrastructure and research facilities. The reform was designed to grow India’s global space industry share from its current 2% to 10% by 2030, and has already spurred the founding of more than 400 new space startups across the country. Skyroot is the most successful of these ventures, and previously made history in 2022 with the launch of India’s first privately developed suborbital rocket.

    The launch also aligns with a period of growing global attention on India’s expanding national space program, which has notched a series of historic successes in recent years including a soft landing near the lunar south pole, successful Mars and solar missions, and ambitious upcoming plans for a crewed space mission in 2027, a Venus orbiter by 2028, and an Indian-built space station by 2035. While Chandana confirmed Skyroot is open to partnering with ISRO on future national missions, he emphasized that the company’s core focus will be tapping into the massive global commercial market for small satellite launches.

    For the Skyroot team, the countdown to Saturday is already a moment of cautious excitement. Chandana noted that SpaceX, now the global leader in commercial launch, achieved its first successful orbital launch only on its fourth attempt – making this maiden attempt a milestone regardless of the outcome, with the entire global space industry watching closely.

  • Chinese AI model takes US tech industry by surprise with abilities rivaling Claude and ChatGPT

    Chinese AI model takes US tech industry by surprise with abilities rivaling Claude and ChatGPT

    On Friday, the U.S. technology landscape was caught off guard by the launch of a cutting-edge new artificial intelligence model from China, a development that underscores how Chinese startups focused on publicly available open-source AI are rapidly closing the gap with Silicon Valley’s most dominant AI players.

    The new release, Kimi K3, comes from Beijing-based AI startup Moonshot, led by chief executive Yang Zhilin—a Pink Floyd enthusiast who earned his doctorate in artificial intelligence and machine learning at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Industry analysts and AI evaluators say the model now rivals top-tier closed-source models from leading U.S. developers Anthropic and OpenAI.

    Anastasios Angelopoulos, co-founder and CEO of independent AI evaluation platform Arena, called the Kimi K3 launch “the single biggest release of the year,” adding that it marks a turning point where open-source Chinese AI models have begun to outperform closed alternatives developed in the United States. The new model already claimed the top spot on Arena’s rankings for front-end coding capability, a key benchmark for measuring large language model performance, and Angelopoulos noted on social media that additional ongoing testing is expected to confirm K3’s position among the global industry’s highest-performing models.

    The launch was strategically timed to coincide with the opening of China’s annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, where Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered the opening address. U.S.-led export restrictions have long blocked Chinese firms from accessing cutting-edge foreign AI hardware and technology, a pressure that has accelerated domestic innovation and deepened the AI and technology rivalry between the world’s two largest economies. During his address, Xi emphasized that AI development should not be a one-nation solo performance, but a collaborative global symphony, a comment widely interpreted as a rebuke to U.S. export curbs on technology sharing.

    Kimi K3 is the second high-profile open-source AI launch from a major Chinese startup in as many months. Last month, leading Chinese AI firm Zhipu (Z.ai) unveiled its flagship GLM-5.2 model, which has already been adopted by software developers across the globe. Developers report that the model delivers performance nearly on par with top U.S. offerings at a far lower price point.

    The market excitement surrounding Kimi K3 echoes the widespread industry disruption that followed the January 2025 launch of another Chinese open-source model from DeepSeek. Not all analysts agree that the hype is justified, however: prominent tech analyst Patrick Moorhead noted on social media that the reaction to K3 is an “overreaction shockingly similar” to the response to DeepSeek’s release last year. Even so, Moorhead acknowledged that while the rising competition could benefit the broader AI ecosystem, it poses significant revenue pressure on market leaders Anthropic and OpenAI.

    At the week’s Shanghai conference, Chinese tech giant Huawei also showcased its new Atlas 950 SuperPoD AI computing system, a clear signal that China has built out robust domestic AI hardware capacity despite U.S. restrictions on imports of advanced chips from U.S. manufacturers including Nvidia. While Moonshot has not publicly disclosed what hardware it used to train Kimi K3, the startup is an official partner of Huawei. According to research published Friday by Bank of America analysts, while Kimi K3 carries the highest price tag of any major Chinese AI model released to date, it still costs only half as much as OpenAI’s top-tier GPT-5.6 Sol model.

    The rising competitiveness of Chinese open-source AI has amplified long-running tensions between U.S. and Chinese developers. Top U.S. AI firms Anthropic and OpenAI, along with many U.S. policymakers, have accused Chinese AI developers of illicit “distillation”—a training technique that uses outputs from a more powerful existing model to train a smaller, less capable alternative—to steal their technology. Beijing has repeatedly dismissed these claims as entirely unfounded. Back in February, Anthropic formally accused DeepSeek, Moonshot and a third Chinese AI lab, MiniMax, of running coordinated campaigns to illicitly extract Claude’s core capabilities to improve their own models. While Anthropic noted that distillation can be a legitimate training method when done ethically, the company argues that it becomes problematic when competitors use it to acquire cutting-edge capabilities in a fraction of the time and cost required for independent development.

    Notably, the flow of AI innovation between the two countries runs in both directions. San Francisco-based startup Anysphere, developer of the widely used coding tool Cursor, has openly acknowledged that one of its flagship products is built on Moonshot’s earlier K2.5 open-source model. Elon Musk’s aerospace firm SpaceX is currently finalizing a $60 billion acquisition deal for Cursor, expected to close later this year.

    For Yang Zhilin, Kimi K3’s landmark performance is a milestone that bridges the U.S.-China tech divide. Yang earned his PhD from Carnegie Mellon in 2019, where he made foundational contributions to machine learning research and was known for his love of classic rock. His former academic adviser at CMU, Russ Salakhutdinov—who previously served as director of AI research at Apple—expressed pride that transcends geopolitical rivalry, writing on social media: “What a huge win for the open-source community! It feels like just yesterday Zhilin was graduating from my lab at CMU.”

    Open-source AI development makes core model architecture and weights publicly accessible for any developer to examine, modify and build into new tools. Proponents argue this open approach accelerates global innovation, while critics warn that making powerful high-capacity AI models freely available creates unmanageable safety and national security risks.

  • China’s Moonshot AI claims Kimi K3 can rival OpenAI and Anthropic

    China’s Moonshot AI claims Kimi K3 can rival OpenAI and Anthropic

    At the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference held in Shanghai on Friday, Chinese artificial intelligence startup Moonshot AI made a landmark announcement that is shaking up global AI development: the official unveiling of Kimi K3, an advanced generative model packing 2.8 trillion parameters, a metric that defines a model’s scale and computational processing capacity. Backed heavily by Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Tencent, Moonshot AI positions Kimi K3 as the most capable flagship model the company has ever built, and it is set to upend long-held industry assumptions about the global AI capability gap.

    Kimi K3 is scheduled to be released as an open-source model on July 27, marking a major milestone for the global AI ecosystem: it will become the world’s first open-source model in the three-trillion-parameter range, meaning developers around the world will be able to freely download, run, and customize the model for their own use cases. Unlike closed, proprietary AI systems developed by leading U.S. firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic, Kimi K3’s open architecture enables global users to modify the framework to support advanced reasoning tasks and complex software development projects. Moonshot AI also highlights a unique design feature: the model is engineered to operate with minimal human supervision, making it well-suited for sustained long-horizon tasks in engineering and large-scale coding work.

    Independent third-party evaluations from leading AI benchmarking bodies Artificial Analysis and Arena.ai confirm that Kimi K3 delivers performance on par with top-tier U.S. AI models, including OpenAI’s GPT series and Anthropic’s Claude family. In blind human-preference testing, the new Chinese model even outperformed Anthropic’s Fable system to claim the top rank in web interface engineering, a key practical capability for modern software development.

    The unveiling of Kimi K3 comes at an extraordinarily sensitive moment for the global AI sector. Just weeks prior, the U.S. government forced American AI developer Anthropic to temporarily pull its flagship Fable and Mythos models from circulation over severe cybersecurity concerns. While Washington has since reversed that withdrawal order, the incident underscores how the U.S. now frames cutting-edge AI as critical national infrastructure, labeling frontier AI models as core national security assets that fall under strict export controls, particularly for advanced AI hardware and software.

    Despite these U.S. restrictions on AI-related hardware sales to Chinese firms, Kimi K3’s rapid development makes clear that Chinese AI companies are advancing independently and effectively navigating regulatory barriers set by Washington. The breakthrough also challenges long-standing Western narratives that Chinese AI developers lag significantly behind their American peers, showing that China’s domestic AI ecosystem is closing the capability gap at a far faster pace than many analysts predicted.

    While Kimi K3’s unprecedented size means that running the model locally requires substantial computing infrastructure, its open-source release is already expected to deliver a major disruption to the commercial AI business models that dominate Silicon Valley. The announcement has already triggered immediate market shifts: shares of Moonshot AI’s domestic Chinese competitors Zhipu and MiniMax tumbled sharply on the Hong Kong stock exchange following the reveal, dropping approximately 27% and 16% respectively as investors reassess the competitive landscape for Chinese generative AI.

  • China’s Xi calls for step up of global effort in AI, as US curbs squeeze China’s tech access

    China’s Xi calls for step up of global effort in AI, as US curbs squeeze China’s tech access

    Against a backdrop of escalating technological competition between the world’s two largest economies, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a landmark call for inclusive global partnership in artificial innovation and governance during his keynote address Friday at the annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference held in Shanghai.

    Xi emphasized that the advancement of AI is a shared global mission, not a project to be controlled or dominated by a single nation. His remarks came in direct response to a series of U.S.-led export restrictions that have cut China off from access to cutting-edge global AI semiconductor and technology frameworks, a policy that has pushed China to accelerate domestic AI research and deepened the ongoing bilateral tech rivalry.

    “The development of artificial intelligence should not be a solo performance by any single country but rather a symphony of global cooperation,” Xi told attendees of the high-profile gathering, which included the heads of state of Kazakhstan, Cambodia and Thailand, as well as United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

    In a reiteration of a long-standing Chinese policy position, Xi called on the international community to jointly push back against the overextension of national security frameworks in the AI sector. “We should together oppose the practice of overstretching the concept of national security in the field of artificial intelligence, and of placing one’s own security above that of other countries,” he said.

    To back its commitment to inclusive AI development, China announced a series of concrete cooperation initiatives targeting developing and emerging economies. Over the coming five years, Xi confirmed China will offer 5,000 specialized AI training opportunities to professionals from developing nations. The country will also expand institutional AI cooperation with major regional blocs, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the League of Arab States, the African Union, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the BRICS grouping of major emerging economies. Additionally, 30 partner countries will gain access to a Chinese-developed AI-powered meteorological early warning system designed to boost disaster preparedness in vulnerable regions.

    The conference came one day after a historic intergovernmental agreement established a new global cooperative body for AI: 29 countries including Pakistan, Russia, and Kazakhstan signed on to launch the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, which will be headquartered in Shanghai, per Chinese state media, with a core mandate of advancing inclusive global AI governance.

    This year’s conference drew more than 1,100 participating companies and 1,400 international and domestic guests, showcasing the rapid expansion of China’s domestic AI ecosystem. Leading Chinese technology giant Huawei is set to demonstrate its flagship high-performance AI computing platform, the Atlas 950 SuperPoD, during the event.

    Industry analysts have noted a marked shift in China’s position in global AI development in recent years. Long framed as a follower chasing U.S. technological leadership, China has now emerged as a genuine AI innovator, backed by national strategic planning that prioritizes AI advancement as a core frontier technology in its 2030 long-term development plan. Chinese open-source AI models such as DeepSeek have grown in global popularity, particularly across the developing world, as a lower-cost alternative to the largely closed-source proprietary AI models developed by U.S. tech firms.

  • Startups bet on AI — and a leaner future

    Startups bet on AI — and a leaner future

    Across the global startup ecosystem, a quiet revolution is unfolding in how software is built, driven by a new wave of artificial intelligence-powered coding tools that are rewriting the rules of tech hiring and product development. Where startups once relied on large rosters of entry-level coders to grind out line-by-line code, today’s companies are leaning on AI to deliver more output with smaller, more experienced teams — leaving early-career programmers facing a shrinking job market.

    At Giftory, an online gifting platform run by Eric Lauer, the shift in hiring priorities could not be clearer. Lauer no longer prioritizes newly graduated junior coders; instead, he seeks out what he calls “smart lazy mid-career architects”: experienced developers who know how to leverage AI tools to amplify their output, rather than writing every line of code manually. “To be an architect, you need that previous world experience, and you need to know all the workflows,” Lauer explained in an interview with AFP. Candidates unfamiliar with end-to-end development workflows simply do not fit the needs of the modern lean startup model, he added.

    This new approach is not an isolated trend — it is becoming the industry standard. AI coding assistants including Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex have fundamentally redefined the role of programmers, shifting their work from manual line-by-line typing to strategic project oversight. With a simple text prompt, AI can now draft, test, and debug large blocks of code instantly, allowing small teams to build complex products that once required dozens of additional employees.

    Industry data underscores how widespread this shift has become. A recent survey of developers at small startups conducted by leading tech newsletter *The Pragmatic Engineer* found that 75% of respondents already use Claude Code in their daily work. Jared Friedman, Managing Partner of prominent startup accelerator Y Combinator, added that a quarter of all companies in the accelerator’s Winter 2025 cohort built their core products using code that is 95% generated by AI.

    For startup leaders, the economic case for AI adoption is overwhelming. At Giftory, which employs roughly 30 people, the company covers a $200 monthly premium AI subscription per employee — a cost Lauer calls “peanuts” compared to the $100,000 average annual salary for a new hire. The cost savings are so substantial that offshoring development work to lower-wage regions is now “uncompetitive,” he said.

    Other startup founders echo this logic. Haitham Mengad, co-founder of Stems Labs, noted that his company already operated with a small, highly skilled team before integrating AI tools. “We already had a pretty lean team and very talented engineers, so the approach I took was, let’s do more with the people that we have,” Mengad explained. At enterprise software firm Espresa, Lindsay Euller, vice president of customer success, said AI adoption has already cut the company’s annual costs by millions of dollars. Looking ahead, Euller predicts any future request for new headcount will require teams to first prove they have fully optimized AI tools before new hires are approved.

    While the efficiency gains are clear for existing companies and workers, the trend has cast a long shadow over the next generation of aspiring software developers. Recent economic research has documented steep declines in entry-level tech employment as more companies adopt generative AI.

    A study from the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, which analyzed payroll data from millions of U.S. workers, found that employment among 22- to 25-year-olds in AI-exposed occupations including software development fell nearly 20% from its late 2022 peak. Separate research from Harvard University, which examined resume and job posting data covering 62 million U.S. workers across 285,000 firms, found that junior employment at companies using generative AI dropped roughly 9% relative to non-adopting firms over a year and a half, even as senior-level hiring held steady.

    Many startup leaders have openly acknowledged the slowdown in entry-level hiring. Ian Amit, CEO of cybersecurity startup Gomboc AI, said widespread hesitation around hiring new junior workers is pervasive across the industry. “I’m hearing of a lot of companies that are interviewing multiple candidates across the board but are not pulling the trigger on actual hiring decisions,” Amit said.

    Not all industry leaders agree that cutting entry-level roles is a sustainable long-term strategy. Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services, one of the world’s largest cloud computing providers, has called the idea of replacing junior developers with AI “one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.” Garman warned that the industry is risking its own future by cutting off the pipeline that培养 the next generation of tech leaders.

    So far, the impact of that shrinking pipeline is already visible. The Computing Research Association reports that computer science enrollment has begun to slide across the United States, dropping 6% across the entire University of California system and falling at two-thirds of all computing programs nationwide.

    For now, however, the economic pressure pushing startups to adopt leaner, AI-powered team structures shows no sign of reversing. Lauer, whose Giftory remains in a hyper-growth phase, summed up the trade-off facing most modern startups: when deciding whether to add resources or add people, the answer increasingly favors AI over new headcount. In the heart of the tech sector, the future is increasingly defined by more artificial intelligence and fewer human employees.

  • China’s Xi says AI should not be dominated by one country

    China’s Xi says AI should not be dominated by one country

    Against a backdrop of growing geopolitical friction over cutting-edge artificial intelligence development, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a landmark call for inclusive global collaboration Friday, opening the annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai with a clear rejection of one-nation dominance in the fast-growing sector.

    In his opening address, Xi framed AI development as a global collective endeavor rather than a competition for unilateral supremacy. “AI development should not be a solo performance by a single country, but a symphony of international cooperation,” he stated. He also pushed back against growing unilateral restrictions on AI technology trade, noting: “We should jointly oppose overstretching the national security concept in the field of AI or placing one country’s security over that of others.”

    The remarks come amid rising tensions: the U.S. and European Union have introduced sweeping restrictions on Chinese technology imports rooted in national security claims, while internal debates within the U.S. over government access to cutting-edge AI models have sparked new uncertainty about global technology governance. Beyond geopolitical disputes, the rapid expansion of AI capabilities has triggered widespread global concern over unregulated use, including potential deployment in military combat and exploitation by malicious actors such as hackers and terrorists. To address these risks, Xi called for a globally coordinated governance framework centered on human oversight, outlining a plan to establish unified laws, regulatory standards, technological monitoring, early warning systems, and emergency response mechanisms to “ensure AI is always under human control” through a “people-centric” approach.

    One day ahead of the conference opening, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi joined representatives from 29 countries including Russia, Pakistan, and Indonesia to sign an agreement launching a new intergovernmental AI cooperation body. Headquartered in Shanghai, the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization will facilitate cross-border consultation and collaboration to advance the “healthy and orderly” growth of global AI, according to Chinese state media. The four-day WAIC has drawn more than 1,000 Chinese technology firms alongside senior officials, leading researchers, and industry leaders from across the globe, with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres among the high-profile international attendees. More than 3,000 AI-powered products are on display at the event, ranging from high-performance semiconductor systems designed for AI computing to consumer smartphones equipped with autonomous AI app operation capabilities.

    Industry analysts describe WAIC as the most authoritative annual event for tracking the trajectory of China’s rapidly expanding AI industry. While the U.S. still holds a clear lead in advanced chip manufacturing, frontier computing infrastructure, and capital-intensive cutting-edge model development, China has emerged as its closest and most comprehensive global competitor, noted Poe Zhao, an analyst with independent technology publication Hello China Tech.

    Chinese AI capabilities have advanced at a striking pace in recent years. On the opening day of WAIC, Beijing-based AI startup Moonshot AI unveiled its new flagship model Kimi K3, which industry reports indicate matches or nearly matches the performance of many top-tier U.S. AI models. Other major launches at this year’s conference include MiniMax’s new M3 generative model, the first mass-produced consumer smartphone integrated with a fully autonomous AI agent, and Huawei’s Atlas 950 “supernode,” a purpose-built AI architecture optimized for large-scale machine learning and complex reasoning.

    Zhao explained that this year’s conference reflects a key industry shift in China: moving beyond developing standalone large language models to building fully integrated AI systems that can be deployed at scale across everyday consumer and industrial use cases. AI agents—autonomous tools that can hold natural conversations, manage third-party software, and complete complex multi-step tasks for users—have emerged as a central focus of the 2025 event.

    AI has become a core strategic priority of Chinese industrial policy, backed by billions in state investment designed to build a fully self-sufficient domestic AI ecosystem spanning from raw chip production to end consumer applications. The scale of China’s AI growth is unprecedented: state media reports that daily domestic consumption of AI “tokens”—the standard industry unit for measuring AI compute usage—has increased 1,000-fold over the past two years. Official projections value China’s domestic AI market at 1.2 trillion yuan ($177 billion) in 2025, with forecast annual growth exceeding 30 percent. Data from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) shows China now leads the world in generative AI patent filings, with more than 43,000 new filings recorded between 2024 and 2025, more than any other nation.

    A growing number of global corporations are also turning to Chinese AI models, drawn to their competitive performance, lower licensing costs, and flexible open-source customization options that stand in contrast to the closed, proprietary systems offered by leading U.S. AI developers such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Global industrial giant Siemens became one of the highest-profile international adopters of Chinese open-source AI in 2025, signaling growing global demand for alternative AI development pathways outside of U.S. control.

  • EU forces Google to share search data and open Android to rival AI companies

    EU forces Google to share search data and open Android to rival AI companies

    BRUSSELS – In a landmark move that solidifies the European Union’s position as a global trailblazer in regulating big tech, EU regulators unveiled two binding new regulatory requirements for Google and its parent company Alphabet on Thursday, designed to force the tech giant to open up its dominant search and Android ecosystem to competing artificial intelligence developers.

    This action marks the latest in a years-long EU campaign to rein in the outsized market power of large technology platforms that control key segments of the global digital economy. Regulators frame the new rules as a critical measure to nurture innovation and expand consumer choice by guaranteeing fair access to Google’s core infrastructure for smaller AI and search rivals.

    “Through these new measures, we expect to see viable alternative options emerge to compete with Google Search and Google’s own AI offerings, including the Gemini large language model,” stated Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice President of the European Commission responsible for technology policy. “Ultimately, this will mean European users gain access to a far broader range of service choices.”

    Over the past half-decade, the 27-nation bloc has built out an increasingly robust regulatory framework for big tech that has set a global benchmark for oversight of U.S. and Chinese-owned platform “gatekeepers.” Past regulatory actions from Brussels have forced Apple to implement cross-platform interoperability rules allowing third-party apps and devices to connect seamlessly to Apple products, and required Meta to remove well-documented addictive design features such as infinite scrolling on its social platforms.

    In its investigation that preceded the new rules, the European Commission confirmed that third-party AI tools have been blocked from delivering the same fully functional user experience on Android devices that Google’s own Gemini AI enjoys. Under the new requirements, Google will be mandated to permit alternative AI agents to access core device functionality, including voice activation across the Android operating system and the ability to run continuous background tasks such as completing restaurant reservations and coordinating appointments via third-party mobile applications. By January 2027, Google will also be required to share anonymized aggregate search data with approved competitors, a change regulators say is necessary to correct a massive market imbalance: Google currently controls a volume of search user data that no existing rival can accumulate independently.

    Not surprisingly, Google has pushed back sharply against the new requirements. Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs for both Google and Alphabet, argued the rules could have unintended negative consequences that undermine protections Google has built into its ecosystem to safeguard user privacy. Walker noted that the current framework requires rigorous vetting of third-party AI tools before they can access sensitive user search data, a requirement the new rules will eliminate.

    “Private search activity carried out by European citizens will be exposed to unvetted third-party companies, without sufficient anonymization safeguards and without the explicit knowledge or consent of users,” Walker said in an official statement responding to the ruling. “This will erode the privacy protections European citizens rely on, put corporate trade secrets at risk, and even create new potential threats to European national security.”

    This latest regulatory action comes amid longstanding pushback from U.S. political and industry leaders against the EU’s aggressive big tech regulatory agenda. Former U.S. President Donald Trump was an outspoken critic of EU tech rules during his time in office, arguing that the bloc’s regulations unfairly disadvantage U.S.-based technology firms.