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Chinese automakers are scouting locations for production bases in Europe after the EU signaled it will introduce local content requirements. Alfredo Altavilla, BYD's adviser for Europe, told Reuters at the opening ceremony of a Denza premium brand dealership in Turin, Italy, that companies are focusing their efforts on inspecting existing auto assembly plants, which can start production faster than building factories from scratch. The European Commission is drafting a "Made in Europe" policy that favors industrial parts and products made within the bloc, and is expected to set minimum local content thresholds for EVs sold in the region, possibly as early as next year. BYD aims to acquire existing plants, take full ownership and then retrofit them; its first European passenger car plant in Hungary is in the early stages of production, and the company is expected to select a second European site within the year. Altavilla said that to grow while meeting EU regulations, BYD will eventually need "three assembly plants and one battery plant" in Europe, adding that Spain and France offer "clearly simpler situations" and are the "most feasible" options. Italy is a "second-best" choice because Stellantis is reluctant to sell plants, he said. Chinese manufacturers have already begun partnerships to share production lines at underutilized European plants: Leapmotor is teaming up with Stellantis in Spain, Dongfeng Motor with Stellantis in France, Geely with Ford Motor in Spain, and Chery has bought a plant in Spain previously owned by Nissan.

Trip.com Group reported better-than-expected second-quarter results, with net revenue rising 6% year over year to 15.7 billion Chinese yuan. Adjusted earnings per ordinary share and ADS came in at 7.27 Chinese yuan, up from 7.20 Chinese yuan a year earlier, while adjusted EPS of $1.07 beat the analyst estimate of $0.91 and revenue of $2.308 billion topped the $2.290 billion estimate. Accommodation reservation revenue rose 6% year over year to 6.6 billion Chinese yuan, or 8% excluding a contra-revenue item tied to an administrative penalty from China's State Administration for Market Regulation, while package tour revenue climbed 8% to 1.2 billion Chinese yuan and corporate travel revenue increased 11% to 771 million Chinese yuan. Transportation ticketing revenue fell 1% to 5.4 billion Chinese yuan on softer demand, higher fuel prices, geopolitical tensions and industry compliance adjustments. Trip.com said more than 70% of its total bookings now come from mobile, a new high for the platform, and that revenue from its international online travel agency platform jumped more than 50% year over year, with first- and business-class flight bookings up more than 70% in the first half of 2026 and AI-assisted orders through TripGenie up about 400%.

Uber Technologies Inc. and WeRide, together with AVOMO, have secured Spain's first national permit covering level 4 autonomous passenger vehicles, making Madrid the fourth city in the Uber-WeRide partnership. The permit was issued by Spain's Directorate General of Traffic and allows WeRide to test its GXR vehicles and conduct roadmapping throughout Madrid ahead of a commercial launch planned for year-end, starting with 20 vehicles each supervised by an in-car specialist in high-demand areas of Greater Madrid. The Uber-WeRide partnership plans to reach 15 cities globally by 2030, part of an Uber asset-light AV strategy that spans more than 30 partnerships, with Uber expecting to commit over $10 billion across AV investments, infrastructure, and vehicle offtake over the coming years. That multi-partner bet is under strain: Uber and Waymo confirmed in late June that their Phoenix partnership had ended, Waymo is reportedly considering a broader exit, and the NHTSA is investigating Uber AV partner Avride after multiple crashes, while Tesla ramps up its own Cybercab fleet and Waymo has raised $16 billion to accelerate independent growth. Hedge fund ownership was broadly stable, with holders slipping from 153 at the end of Q1 2026 to 151 at the end of Q2 2026, and short interest stood at only 2.29% of float as of August 31, 2026.

King Gen Public Company Limited, or KGEN, disclosed that Rayong Wire Industries Public Company Limited, or RWI, has taken a stake in KGEN through a private placement subscription of newly issued ordinary shares worth no more than 250 million baht, at a price of no more than 1.35 baht per share, representing approximately 7.68% of the shares after the capital increase, with total investment of no more than 252 million baht. RWI will also receive the right to subscribe to KGEN-W3 warrants in proportion to its existing shareholding, worth no more than 2 million baht. The maximum transaction size of 24.67% qualifies as a Type 3 transaction, which requires approval from a shareholders' meeting by a vote of no less than three-quarters. An extraordinary shareholders' meeting, the first of 2026, has been scheduled for Thursday, October 22, 2026. Khanit Sivachiraprapha, Chairman of the Advisory Board of KGEN, said the partnership will strengthen the domestic supply chain for automotive parts production, in line with the policy of increasing the use of locally made parts in electric vehicle production under cooperation with the CHERY brand. RWI specialises in the production of cold-drawn steel, which is used to make automotive parts. KGEN has so far produced 20,000 vehicles, with EV production capacity of approximately 5,000 vehicles per month, and expects capacity to rise by another 15,000 to 20,000 vehicles in the final three months of the year, bringing total production for the year to around 40,000 vehicles. Year-end bookings are expected to accelerate on the back of the Motor Expo in December, where two to three new electric vehicle models will be unveiled. The company has also signed an agreement to support a transport fleet for J&T Express, including the use of electric pickup trucks for deliveries of no more than 400 kilometres.

XPENG held the China launch event for its next-gen AI flagship SUV, the G9L, in Beijing, and said the model will be available in 64 global markets with a global launch event on October 12 at the Paris Motor Show. The G9L comes in both BEV and REEV versions, measures 5,120 mm long with a 3,100 mm wheelbase and a 0.605 wheelbase-to-length ratio, and runs on XPENG's VLA 2.0 model and the same Turing AI chip used in its IRON humanoid robot. The vehicle meets the design standards of four major five-star safety ratings worldwide, having completed 192 crash tests across the Euro NCAP, ANCAP, C-NCAP and CIASI protocols totaling more than 110 individual test items, plus global road testing across 26 countries and regions with cumulative mileage surpassing 6.74 million kilometers. The G9L will begin production in both Guangzhou, China, and Graz, Austria, becoming the fourth XPENG model to roll off the line at Magna's plant in Graz after the G6, G9 and P7+, meaning four localized models within a single year. At the event, Chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng also said the world's first automated production line for advanced general-purpose humanoid robots was officially commissioned, using robots to produce robots, and confirmed XPENG's Paris Motor Show booth is in Hall 6.

Trip.com Group Limited reported second-quarter fiscal 2026 adjusted earnings of $1.07 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 98 cents, sending its shares up 3%. Shares of Diamondback Energy, Inc. fell 8% after largest shareholder SGF Capital executed a $1.9 billion block trade. The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. shares fell 4% as financial stocks sold off on the Fed's rate hike and indications of additional tightening. Shares of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. gained 5.2% after the company announced plans for its 14th Starship test launch, targeted for Sept. 22.

Swedish automaker Volvo Cars said on the 17th that it plans to launch 13 new models by 2030. It will roll out six models for the Chinese market and seven for the European and American markets, expanding its lineup in an effort to revive sales. Through this, it aims to raise its EBIT margin from 3.5% in 2025 to above 8%, a long-standing target. The models for Europe and the United States will use Volvo's SPA2 and SPA3 vehicle platforms, while the models for China will be developed jointly with Geely Automobile, which is part of the same group. Chief Executive Officer Håkan Samuelsson said in a statement that this new model launch strategy is based on four distinctive strengths: regionally tailored product development, a leading position in electrification, synergies with Geely, and comprehensive customer services that go beyond the car itself.

AstraZeneca has pledged to invest $15bn in China, deepening Western pharmaceutical ties with a country that has become a bona fide drug superpower even as Washington moves to sever them. The company's chief executive, Sir Pascal Soriot, announced the investment during Sir Keir Starmer's Beijing visit, building on existing manufacturing and research sites in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuxi, Taizhou and Qingdao; China is now AstraZeneca's second-largest market, accounting for roughly 12pc of global turnover, with around 17,000 employees and four advanced manufacturing sites. GSK has struck a series of partnerships with Chinese labs, including a $1.3bn pact with Hutchmed for the bulk of licensing rights to what it called first-in-class cancer treatments, and an alliance with Hengrui Pharma worth up to $12bn. Industry-wide licensing deals totalled $138bn last year, a nearly tenfold jump since 2021, according to PharmCube. The US Biosecure Act, signed into law in December, bars companies reliant on federal contracts from working with Chinese biotech firms tied to the military, and the proposed Biotech Investment National Security Act would subject licensing deals involving Chinese companies to national security reviews. China had 1,255 drugs at the research stage by 2024, a nearly eight-fold jump in less than a decade, against 1,441 in America and 400 in Europe.

Alibaba.com, the business-to-business e-commerce platform, or B2B, has officially launched Accio, an agentic AI-powered business assistant for small and medium-sized enterprises, or SMEs, in Thailand. The launch took place at the Thailand B2B AI Seller Summit 2026 under the theme Beyond Export, unlocking the potential of Thai SMEs for the global stage with Accio. Accio functions as a team of AI specialists made up of AI agents with specific areas of expertise that can coordinate with one another, handling the entire process from market research, product planning, sourcing of goods and suppliers, price negotiation, and creating multilingual product listings, through to global marketing and managing online storefronts. Entrepreneurs do not need any programming skills. At the same time, the company also launched the Smart Assistant Agent, which is powered by Accio and connects directly to the Alibaba.com Seller Workbench store management system. Alibaba.com said Thailand has more than 3.1 million SMEs, accounting for 99.5% of all businesses, generating more than 70% of the country's employment and contributing about 35% of gross domestic product, or GDP, yet accounting for less than 15% of Thailand's total export value. Meanwhile, in August 2026, the number of product listings from Thai sellers on the platform rose by more than 150% compared with the same period a year earlier, while the number of inquiries from buyers increased by more than 90%. Roger Luo, head of business for South Asia and Southeast Asia at Alibaba.com, said the company wants to boost the capabilities of Thai entrepreneurs so they can operate in a way that is close to that of large corporations. Wuttisak Kanjanaporn, director of the Digital Commerce Market Office at the Department of International Trade Promotion, or DITP, said digital technology is playing a growing role in the competitiveness of Thai entrepreneurs, especially SMEs. Ethan Wang, head of global seller products and services at Alibaba.com, said Accio was developed to give SMEs an AI team that can start working immediately. Alibaba.com also launched a new membership package for sellers to support Thai exporters.

Gastech 2026 announced partnerships and investment plans during its first three days worth a combined $40 billion, covering agreements ranging from memoranda of understanding to purchase contracts and investment plans across the energy value chain. China Gas Holdings and Venture Global LNG agreed to buy 0.5 million tonnes per year of LNG from the United States over 20 years, starting in 2030. Samsung Heavy Industries closed a deal to build LNG carriers and crude oil tankers worth $1.2 billion, while the state of Sarawak concluded talks with Indorama Ventures and partners from Japan on downstream natural gas and petrochemical investment worth about $1 billion in Bintulu. In addition, PETRONAS, PTTEP JDA and the Thailand-Malaysia Joint Authority signed a 35-year production sharing contract and a natural gas sales agreement in the Thailand-Malaysia Joint Development Area. GE Vernova and B.Grimm Power signed an agreement to supply gas turbine technology and long-term services in Thailand and Malaysia. Eni signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Senegal to assess the oil potential of five offshore exploration blocks, and Horacio Marín, chairman and chief executive of YPF, announced plans to sign two to three LNG sales contracts for the Argentina LNG export project. Supawan Teerarat, director of the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau, or TCEB, said the event drew more than 50,000 participants from over 150 countries and is expected to generate about 14.62 billion baht in economic value.

Apex Intelligence has completed its angel and angel-plus funding rounds, raising nearly US$50 Million in total. The angel round was co-led by IDG Capital, LinkX Capital and XtalPi, with participation from Decent Capital, SEE Fund, Monad Ventures, and Winsoul Capital, while the angel-plus round was co-led by Zhongguancun Science City Fund, SCGC, and Shanghai Engine Fund. Founded in June 2026, the Beijing-based company is building self-evolving foundation models based on Recursive Self-Improvement, aiming to move AI from an assistive tool to a co-researcher focused on scientific research and discovery. Apex Intelligence said its self-evolving AI system has autonomously produced research of a standard suitable for acceptance at leading AI conferences, comparable to an AI PhD student, and has produced a complete proof of the majorization conjecture, which had remained open for more than three decades. The company was founded by Yongchao Chen, an assistant professor at Tsinghua University's School of Artificial Intelligence, and will visit leading North American universities including Harvard University, MIT, Yale University, and Boston University from September 17 to September 23 for talent recruitment and research collaboration.

Alphabet-backed robotaxi service Waymo has announced the expansion of its autonomous vehicles in Las Vegas, as well as a 2027 rollout of Waymo vehicles in Tokyo. In an official statement released on Monday, Waymo said it is rolling out its service in Las Vegas, where a majority of the fleet would comprise the Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd.-backed Zeekr's co-developed "Ojai" Robotaxis with Waymo's sixth-generation self-driving suite. Waymo says the service will be offered in an area spanning nearly 24 miles from Boulder Junction to Sahara Avenue and from Spring Valley to Winchester in Las Vegas, with plans to expand to other residents in the Clark County region. In a separate release, Waymo said it will be rolling out its unsupervised Robotaxis in Tokyo next year, contingent on securing regulatory approval from national and local authorities, as well as completing the ongoing validation of Waymo's technology. Waymo has partnered with taxi operator Nihon Kotsu as well as Japanese ride-hailing platform GO, and riders will be able to book rides in Tokyo via the Waymo app as well as the GO app once the service rolls out. Separately, Uber Technologies Inc. said it will expand and offer Robotaxis on its platform in Japan, with CEO Dara Khosrowshahi calling Japan a "terrific market" for the ride-hailing giant; Uber has signed an operational partnership with Japan's Hinomaru Kotsu Co. Ltd. to oversee fleet operations in Tokyo as the service eyes a late 2026 launch.

MemryX has signed a memorandum of understanding with Lenovo to expand the deployment of sovereign edge AI solutions across Saudi Arabia. The agreement builds on joint platform deployments already operating in the Kingdom and establishes a framework for the two companies to pursue additional opportunities across infrastructure, industrial operations, smart cities and video management, supporting Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030. The joint platform combines the Lenovo ThinkEdge SE455 V3 rugged edge server with the MemryX Cascade 100P AI accelerator to process video and sensor data on site, reducing latency and limiting reliance on centralized, power- and cooling-intensive AI infrastructure. The platform is already operating in large-scale infrastructure programs in Saudi Arabia, with one deployment delivering real-time construction safety analytics including personal protective equipment compliance and site safety event detection, and a second running compliance and site-monitoring workloads in a port environment across the operator's existing camera infrastructure. Under the MOU, Lenovo and MemryX will expand customer deployments in Saudi Arabia, validate the platform through a Lenovo Center of Excellence, develop additional solutions through Lenovo AI Innovation, and explore rack-scale server configurations for computer vision inference, supporting potential regional and global go-to-market opportunities.

Worldwide data center capital expenditures accelerated sharply in 2Q 2026, growing 92 percent, according to a newly published report from Dell'Oro Group. Continued AI infrastructure investment supported growth across compute, storage, networking, and physical infrastructure, while rising memory and storage prices significantly increased server average selling prices. Baron Fung, Vice President of Research at Dell'Oro Group, said spending remained concentrated in NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra and hyperscaler custom accelerators, while agentic AI created incremental demand for general-purpose compute, storage, and complementary networking. Neocloud providers and AI model builders posted the fastest capex growth among customer segments, reflecting the early stages of their infrastructure buildouts, and Dell led server OEM revenue, followed by Supermicro and Lenovo, while white-box server revenue reached a record high. Fung added that ongoing accelerator deployments and emerging agentic AI and AI-related storage workloads should sustain strong capex growth through the remainder of 2026 and beyond, although supply constraints could limit the pace at which planned infrastructure is deployed.

Axera announced that its automotive-grade ADAS SoC M57 now powers Aptiv's new-generation integrated front-view ADAS unit, which has entered mass production and begun deliveries for EU-bound models from a leading Chinese new-energy vehicle manufacturer. Led by Aptiv's China team, the driver-assistance system meets the requirements for a five-star rating under the 2026 Euro NCAP protocols. The unit uses a single M57 SoC with an integrated MCU to cut hardware size and power use by 20% each, and incorporates an 8MP, 120° HD camera, leading vision perception algorithms, and Wind River Kaiwu RTOS. The M57 is a Chinese automotive-grade SoC built on Axera's full-stack, proprietary core IP, with an NPU delivering up to 10 TOPS and native support for BEV and Transformer architectures, plus an integrated MCU and ASIL-D hardware safety island certified to AEC-Q100 Grade 2, ISO 26262 ASIL-B, and ISO/SAE 21434. Li Hao, Axera's GM of Automotive Business, called the EU mass-production launch a milestone for Chinese automotive chips developed in China and built to serve the world, and said M57 has already secured design wins from multiple automakers and Tier 1 suppliers in China and abroad.

Karin Rådström is steering Daimler Truck, the world's largest commercial-vehicle manufacturer, through a cultural and strategic overhaul as Chinese competition looms over the European truck market. Since becoming CEO in 2024, Daimler Truck's share price has risen almost 40%, from €33.15 to €46.24, and zero-emissions vehicle sales climbed 67% in 2025, though group net profits fell 48% year-on-year in the second quarter despite a 5% revenue uplift, hit primarily by tariffs. Chinese companies currently hold just 1.36% of the European commercial-vehicle market, according to Dataforce, but SuperPanther and Sinotruk have begun production in Austria and Windrose has set up a European headquarters in Antwerp, while Windrose's Global E700 offers a 700 km fully loaded range against 500 km for Daimler Truck's flagship model. Defense is a key growth pillar: Daimler Truck aims to double defense-related revenues to €1 billion, or $1.17 billion, by 2028, a figure that would still represent only 2% of overall annual revenue, and it plans to invest mid-three-digit-million euros in its new Daimler Truck Defence brand while targeting Level 4 autonomous trucks for the U.S. market by 2027. Rådström, only the second woman to lead a DAX 40 company, has pushed a "simpler, faster, and stronger" operating mantra to cut bureaucracy, a shift Citi analyst Klas Bergelind says has decentralized the organization even as cultural change takes time.

Venture Global announced on September 14 that it signed a sales and purchase agreement with China Gas Holdings for 0.5 million tons per annum of LNG starting in 2030, raising China Gas's total long-term commitments with the American exporter to 2.5 mtpa. The deal adds 0.5 mtpa of contracted volumes for two decades, giving Venture Global greater visibility on revenue and cash flows as it expands its Louisiana portfolio. The agreement lands ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's expected visit to Washington later this month; China bought as much as $6.2 billion worth of American LNG shipments in 2021 before halting imports in March 2025 after Beijing's tariffs on American energy products raised costs. Venture Global is building out capacity, with its Plaquemines project expected to complete phase 1 by the fourth quarter of 2026 and phase two by mid-2027, and its CP2 project expected to start production in the second half of 2027. The company noted the new contract does not begin until 2030 and will have little direct effect on near-term earnings and cash flows, while China's total LNG imports fell to a three-year low of 68.43 million tons in 2025 and Beijing has retained a 15% levy on US LNG.

French auto giant Renault and Chinese peer Geely Automobile announced on the 15th that they will invest a further 319 million euros in Brazil through their joint venture, strengthening their partnership in that market. With this new investment, the two companies' total investment in Brazil from 2025 to 2027 will reach 899 million euros. According to Renault, the agreement will allow Geely to use Renault's existing plants and dealership network, while Renault will be able to raise utilization at its assembly plants and add large vehicles to its lineup. Under the new investment plan, Renault will begin producing its flex-fuel-capable four-wheel-drive hybrid system, Hybrid E-Tech, in Brazil starting in 2027. In Brazil, rival Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD is steadily building a foothold with affordable EVs and plug-in hybrids.

Jingwei Shares announced on the evening of September 16 that Chinasoft International Xi'an Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. plans to acquire 17.8062 million shares at 53 yuan per share, representing 29.68% of total share capital and 29.99% of total share capital excluding shares in the listed company's repurchase account. The total transfer price is 944 million yuan. The company's controlling shareholder will change from having no controlling shareholder to Chinasoft Xi'an, and trading will resume on September 17. As of the close on September 9, Jingwei Shares' stock price was 37.50 yuan per share, implying a transfer price premium of about 41.3% over the market price. The transferee, Chinasoft Xi'an, is a newly established entity set up in September 2026 with registered capital of 600 million yuan and has not yet commenced actual business operations. Its indirect controlling shareholder is the Hong Kong-listed company Chinasoft International. Since its listing in 2023, Jingwei Shares' net profit attributable to the parent company has continued to decline. In the first half of 2026, revenue was 135 million yuan, down 37.30% year on year, and net profit attributable to the parent company was a loss of 23.1229 million yuan, swinging from profit to loss year on year. After the share transfer is completed, Jingwei Shares will initiate a board restructuring. The new board will consist of seven directors, with Chinasoft Xi'an entitled to nominate three non-independent directors and three independent director candidates. The chairman will be a director nominated by Chinasoft Xi'an.

Chinese model developer Z.AI launched roughly $5 billion of share and convertible-bond sales on September 11 to fund models and computing infrastructure, days after a September 14 opinion piece in China's state-backed Global Times called Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's proposal to pace frontier AI a "Cold War playbook" aimed at China. The financing signals Chinese developers have strong incentives to accelerate while U.S. labs debate restraint, and it lands as Alibaba Group Holding Limited funds China's AI stack while Nvidia Corporation says export controls have largely shut it out of China's data-center compute market. Alibaba completed an HK$80 billion, roughly $10.2 billion, Hong Kong share placement on August 26 to finance chips, infrastructure and model development, after its August 20 results showed AI Cloud and Compute Services revenue rose 45% to $7.1 billion and cloud adjusted EBITA increased 133%. Nvidia's latest 10-Q said it was effectively foreclosed from China's data-center compute market at the end of its fiscal second quarter, with limited H200 shipments less than 1% of quarterly Data Center revenue. U.S. officials accused Alibaba and other Chinese labs on September 8 of illicit model distillation, allegations China rejected, and Insider Monkey's database showed 97 hedge funds with reportable BABA long positions in Q2 2026, down from 102 in Q1, while 285 hedge funds were long Nvidia in Q2, up from 275 in Q1.

Google Cloud officially opened its Singapore engineering centre on 15 September, the company's first engineering centre in Southeast Asia, serving as a hub for product development in the region. The company said in a statement that the centre will bring together software engineers specialising in artificial intelligence, AI infrastructure, data, computing, machine learning, networking and storage, as well as a frontline support team. It will work with businesses to develop cloud systems and solutions for use in Singapore and other markets. Salaries for AI personnel in Singapore are growing five times faster than the country's average wage, and new graduates in this field start their careers earning as much as 90,000 Singapore dollars a year. Meanwhile, technology companies from China and the United States are racing to expand hiring in Singapore. On 20 May, OpenAI announced an investment of more than 300 million Singapore dollars, along with plans to set up an Applied AI Lab and create more than 200 technical jobs in the country over the coming years. Anthropic, for its part, opened recruitment for product support specialists based in Singapore for the first time, and Alibaba's cloud computing business unit established a global artificial intelligence innovation centre in Singapore in 2025.

Blue Moon Metals, the Elmet Group and EQ Resources have agreed to invest between $150m and $175m in the Springer Tungsten Complex in Imlay, Nevada, under a binding letter agreement aimed at strengthening the US tungsten supply chain. TEG plans to invest a total of $150m, split between a direct investment in Blue Moon's activities at Springer and an equity injection into a new joint venture that will own and operate the ammonium paratungstate plant, while Blue Moon retains control of the mine and mill. The package also includes a $50m tungsten prepayment facility from TEG to Blue Moon, repaid through sales credits against concentrate output, and a further $25m in standby funding from TEG and EQ for the APT plant's restart if needed. The JV will receive a $75m capital injection from TEG, leaving TEG with 70% equity, Blue Moon 20% and EQ 10%, with TEG operating the APT plant. Springer's mine and plant are expected to return to operation in the fourth quarter of 2027, with the APT restart projected for the second half of 2028, and the parties expect to finalise a $50m initial investment within 45 days, subject to regulatory approvals and due diligence.

Chinese autonomous driving technology company Pony.ai unveiled a fully electric truck equipped with Level 4 autonomous driving capabilities, allowing driverless operation under specific conditions, on the 14th at the IAA Transportation commercial vehicle trade fair that opened in Hanover, Germany. The vehicle announced was developed jointly with Chinese state-owned automaker GAC Group, and mass production will begin in the second half of this year. The company also revealed that it is in discussions with European governments and potential customers regarding road testing in Europe. Vice President Hua Xin, who heads the robotruck business, said, "We have already approached multiple ports and several governments about this issue," noting that the company is focusing on markets with high labor costs or facing severe labor shortages, and added, "Europe is definitely an important market for robotrucks." Pony.ai currently operates about 200 Level 4 autonomous trucks in China, some of which run fully driverless, but few countries in Europe have established systems or regulations permitting test runs of autonomous vehicles. In a statement, the company said it plans to expand its robotruck business into European and Middle Eastern markets within the next two years, and it is also advancing its robotaxi business outside China, conducting test operations in multiple European cities including Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.

China's first-half 2026 apparel earnings season shows growth concentrating among stronger brands while legacy casualwear players lose ground. Biemlofe posted revenue growth of 23.7 percent with online sales rising more than 100 percent, and Balabala generated 4.83 billion yuan ($677 million) in first-half revenues, accounting for 71.8 percent of parent company Semir's total revenue. Dazzle Fashion, Ellassay, JNBY and Biemlofe all reported gross margins above 65 percent, while Erdos reported a 43.2 percent increase in first-half net profit. On the losing side, Heilan Home grew revenue 7.4 percent but net profits declined 5.9 percent, Semir's casualwear business grew just 3.4 percent, and Peacebird and Septwolves continue to work through inventory and channel restructuring. China's broader apparel market still grew in the first half, with retail sales of apparel, footwear and knitwear increasing 6.7 percent year-over-year, yet sales at above-quota specialty stores fell 8.7 percent.

President Donald Trump said he would be open to Chinese automakers building cars in the United States as long as they hire American workers. "If China wanted to come in and open a plant to build their cars here, I'd be okay with that," Trump said in an interview with Fox News, adding that "the big thing is they hire our people." He said he did not want Chinese companies building in Mexico and shipping vehicles across the border, and he dismissed as a "total phony rumor" Senator Elissa Slotkin's claim that he was planning to allow Chinese cars to be sold in the U.S. as part of a larger deal, noting that he has imposed a 150% tariff on any car from China and that there are currently no Chinese cars in the United States. The comments come as Trump is scheduled to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month. U.S. automakers have called on Congress to pass legislation permanently banning Chinese vehicles from the U.S. market, with Alliance for Automotive Innovation CEO John Bozzella warning lawmakers that Chinese automakers are dumping subsidized vehicles with connected software and hardware worldwide that can collect and transmit sensitive data to the Chinese Communist Party.

Volvo Cars has finalised an agreement with its parent company Geely Auto to become the exclusive distributor for the Lynk & Co new energy vehicle brand in Europe starting in January 2027. The deal follows a preliminary agreement signed at the end of March, and Volvo will take responsibility for Lynk & Co's commercial operations across Europe from the beginning of next year, using its own retailers and service network to distribute the vehicles. Volvo Cars said it will maintain clear brand differentiation with Lynk & Co while broadening its total consumer base and increasing sales and servicing business for its retail partners. Volvo Cars chief commercial officer Erik Severinson said the partnership combines Volvo's commercial infrastructure with Lynk & Co's brand and product proposition, while Lynk & Co International CEO Mo Wang said the two will work closely to turn the partnership into sustainable long-term growth. The business with Lynk & Co will be led by Martin Persson, reporting directly to Severinson, and Lynk & Co will continue to design, develop and certify its global product portfolio as part of the Geely Auto Group.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the 15th Five-Year Plan for the development of the information and communications industry, setting the goal of building a new-generation communications network by 2030, with cumulative investment in information infrastructure reaching 3.8 trillion yuan, and the target for intelligent computing power jumping from 1,590 exaflops to 9,800 exaflops. It also proposed launching 6G commercial use at an appropriate time and advancing 6G standard development and technical trials. Driven by this industry catalyst, the Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.18% in the previous trading session, while the communications sector rose 0.63% against the trend. The Southern Fund's Communications ETF saw a turnover rate of 6.93% and turnover of 24 million yuan, while the CSI Communications Services Index it tracks gained 0.63%. At the industry level, institutional data shows that the communications sector rose 73.59% in the first half of 2026, significantly outperforming the CSI 300. Shipments of 800G optical modules continued to expand, and 1.6T entered the early stage of large-scale deployment. Third-party institutions forecast that the global AI optical module market will reach 26 billion US dollars in 2026. In addition, on September 11, the US Federal Communications Commission finalized relevant rules, and several leading domestic optical module makers such as Zhongji Innolight and Eoptolink were not included for the time being, easing overseas policy concerns.

Summit Therapeutics said Sunday that its ivonescimab significantly extended survival compared with Merck's Keytruda in a late-stage lung cancer trial run by its partner Akeso in China. Ivonescimab reduced the risk of death by 27% versus Keytruda, also known as pembrolizumab, in previously untreated patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer whose tumors expressed PD-L1, with median overall survival of 30.8 months against 22.6 months, an 8.2-month difference Summit called statistically significant. The Phase 3 HARMONi-2 trial enrolled 398 patients with a median follow-up of 36 months, and the results are being presented at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer's World Conference on Lung Cancer in Seoul. In the 168-patient subgroup with high PD-L1 expression, ivonescimab cut the risk of death by 42%, while the benefit was smaller and not statistically reliable in patients with lower PD-L1 expression, where the hazard ratio was 0.85 with a confidence interval crossing 1.0. Serious treatment-related adverse events occurred in 29.9% of ivonescimab patients versus 21.6% for Keytruda, though discontinuations were slightly less frequent at 4.1% versus 5%, and Summit is now recruiting for the global Phase 3 HARMONi-7 trial, expected to enroll 780 patients, while the FDA reviews a separate application in previously treated EGFR-mutated lung cancer with a Nov. 14 decision deadline.

Goldman Sachs has identified Chinese healthcare stocks as a key post-AI growth opportunity, with pharmaceutical names accounting for one-third of the 12 companies that made its final screen. In a Sept. 7 report, the firm's portfolio strategy research team said nearly half of MSCI China index constituents beat estimates in the second quarter, led by IT and healthcare, and that Chinese stocks' earnings tracked by Goldman Sachs grew at their highest quarterly pace in five years at 24% in the second quarter from a year ago, accelerating from just 6% in the first quarter. The analysts screened their buy-rated coverage for Chinese companies with expected earnings growth of more than 15% annually through 2027 and an increase in earnings per share estimates by a median of 7% over the past month. The four healthcare names on the list are Suzhou-based Innovent Biologics, whose earnings are expected to more than double in the year ahead with Goldman's estimate 54 percentage points above consensus; Shanghai-listed BeOne Medicines, also expected to more than double; Hong Kong-listed CSPC, forecast to grow 26%; and Hong Kong-listed Hansoh Pharma, forecast to grow 15%. Goldman expects MSCI China earnings to grow by 8% this year, far more conservative than the consensus forecast for 17%.

Summit Therapeutics said its partner Akeso reported that ivonescimab monotherapy reduced the risk of death by 27% compared with pembrolizumab monotherapy in the Phase III HARMONi-2 study in PD-L1-positive advanced non-small cell lung cancer conducted in China. In the protocol-specified interim overall survival analysis, a secondary endpoint, ivonescimab achieved a hazard ratio of 0.73, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.57 to 0.95 and a p-value of 0.009, and improved median overall survival by 8.2 months, to 30.8 months versus 22.6 months for pembrolizumab. In the PD-L1 high expression subgroup, the hazard ratio was 0.58, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.38 to 0.89. The data are being presented at the IASLC 2026 World Conference on Lung Cancer in Seoul by Professor Caicun Zhou of Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital on Tuesday, September 15, 2026. Akeso received marketing authorization for ivonescimab from China's National Medical Products Administration in April 2025 based on HARMONi-2, and Summit is conducting the global Phase III HARMONi-7 study of ivonescimab monotherapy versus pembrolizumab monotherapy in PD-L1 high-expressing metastatic NSCLC, targeting enrollment of 780 patients.

Geely Auto's Galaxy brand launched the Galaxy TT electric sedan in China on Sept. 10 at a limited-time starting price of 129,900 yuan, or roughly $19,170, according to CnEVPost. The entry version carries a 63.8-kWh lithium iron phosphate pack from CATL and delivers 640 km of range on the China Light-Duty Vehicle Test Cycle, with every trim in the lineup shipping an 800-volt architecture and 6C fast charging that moves the battery from 10% to 80% in about 11.8 minutes. The launch price landed 16,000 yuan below the August pre-sale figure, and the entry trim gained 100 km of range, while rear-drive models produce 245 kW, or 329 horsepower, and reach 100 km/h in 6.5 seconds. The sedan will not reach U.S. buyers: a China-built car faces a 2.5% base duty, the 100% Section 301 tariff imposed in 2024 and the 25% Section 232 tariff applied in 2025, landing a $19,170 sedan closer to $43,600 at the port, and the Commerce Department's Connected Vehicle Rule blocks cars with meaningful Chinese ownership or software ties starting with the 2027 model year. Geely-controlled Polestar said the Commerce Department declined its authorization covering new model variants from the 2027 model year onwards, while Volvo Cars, also controlled by Geely, was cleared in May after reworking how its vehicle data is governed and routed. Geely's exports rose 205% year over year in August to 110,094 vehicles, roughly 41% of total sales, while domestic volume fell about 25%, according to CnEVPost.