Flash News

TREE NEWS reports: Anthropic warned that rogue “AI worms” are months away from being able to self-replicate and autonomously infect user devices, including home appliances and other internet-connected hardware. The company said the malicious software could spread across devices in a virus-like manner.

TREE NEWS update: Shenzhen-listed Xiechuang Data pushed back on investor-platform questions over three related-party transactions, saying its RMB 32.2 billion server procurement is front-loaded infrastructure spending for cloud computing services and need not match sales contracts one-for-one. The company said dealings with Metabytes and Qishuo Technology were based on genuine business needs and market pricing, with related-party review and disclosure procedures followed. As of June 30, 2026, cumulative sales to Metabytes reached RMB 134.12 million and purchases from Qishuo RMB 93.77 million, both within approved limits.

TREE NEWS reports: JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs took the rare step of limiting their exposure in a $5 billion AI loan for Volta Infrastructure Holdings, a cloud-services firm founded this year, underwriting only a $1.3 billion term loan and refusing to underwrite the $3.7 billion chip loan. The package, offered at roughly 11% — among the highest borrowing costs in the AI leveraged-loan market — is backed by 36,000 Nvidia chips and a Norwegian leasehold.

TREE NEWS update: Stepfun Terminal unveiled the STEPX Neo, described as the first large-model-native agent phone, at a launch event where it announced a deep AI partnership with Alipay. The phone’s built-in Amoo personal agent can call more than 300 Alipay Abao services — including food delivery, transport, logistics, housekeeping and government services — after user authorization, completing search-for-deals, payment and fulfillment within the chat interface.

TREE NEWS update: Alibaba’s Qwen Office is developing an e-commerce edition aimed at multi-platform merchants, with a launch planned just before the Singles Day pre-sale period. The project began preparations in June and entered intensive development in September, coordinated by Qwen Office CEO Chen Yusen and led by Huang Peipei. Nearly 100 employees are involved, with the e-commerce team supplying industry expertise and merchant insights and the Qwen Office team providing general Agent capabilities and product coordination.

TREE NEWS update: Nvidia and Cisco jointly launched an ultra-dense small form-factor pluggable (USFP) module, the industry’s first to support 400Gb/s electrical signaling per lane and up to 12.8Tb/s per module, targeting next-generation AI factories. Separately, Marvell introduced second-generation Structera X 3406 and 3506 CXL memory expanders for AI inference, billed as the first six-channel CXL 3.2 expanders supporting up to 9TB DDR4 or 6TB DDR5 per controller. Samsung and AMD also demoed a CXL memory expansion solution at OCP 2026.

TREE NEWS update: Nasdaq-listed Cipher Digital plans to raise $850 million through a private placement of zero-coupon convertible bonds to fund its Barber Lake project and high-performance computing data center expansion. The offering can be upsized to $1 billion if initial purchasers exercise an option for an additional $150 million. The company also plans to convert part of its 1.75% convertible notes due 2030 into common stock.

TREE NEWS update: StepFun launched the STEPX Neo Pioneer Edition, priced at a 3,999 yuan all-in bundle that combines its Step-series models, Step AOS system, Step Studio tools and the STEPX Neo phone hardware, available in carbon black and silicon silver. Buyers get a 12-month STEPX Token Plan granting 10 billion tokens per month to support AI agent development.

TREE NEWS update: At its STEPX Neo agent phone launch event, StepFun announced that Step 5 Preview is now integrated with Tencent WorkBuddy, bringing stronger reasoning and agent capabilities to real office scenarios. The model can autonomously handle deep research, data analysis, PPT generation and multi-step complex tasks, with a limited-time free trial.

TREE NEWS update: Shanghai’s municipal government published its 15th Five-Year Plan for energy conservation, carbon reduction and circular economy, requiring new computing facilities to keep power usage effectiveness (PUE) at or below 1.2. The plan supports integrated use of liquid cooling, high-efficiency servers, green energy and AI-based energy-saving control models, and explores subsea data centers paired with offshore wind. Existing computing, base station and equipment-room infrastructure will undergo efficiency upgrades.

TREE NEWS reports: Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee said the artificial intelligence boom is beginning to drive prices higher. The remark points to AI investment and demand as an emerging source of upward price pressure, a factor the Fed weighs as it sets interest rates.

TREE NEWS reports: Chinese IT services firm SoftStone (iSoftStone) deleted a WeChat article stating that its order of 8,000 Nvidia 6000D (Blackwell) GPUs had recently arrived, though reposts and media citations remain online. A company securities affairs representative, reached by phone as an investor, said they were unclear on the matter and that SoftStone will disclose items meeting regulatory thresholds based on business conditions, not absolute amounts. The representative added that news and formal filings differ and advised investors not to rely on such business news as their sole investment basis.

TREE NEWS update: China released version 4.0 of ‘Qiusuo’ on October 13, described as the country’s first evaluation benchmark covering the entire artificial intelligence industry chain. The benchmark spans computing power, model algorithms, intelligent systems and products, industry applications, and security governance.

TREE NEWS update: CATL said it will commit 400 million yuan as a limited partner in Shanghai Shidai Chenyuan Venture Capital Partnership, taking a 26.64% subscribed share of the fund. The fund’s total subscribed capital is 1.502 billion yuan, targeting new energy and future energy, the intersection of AI and digital technology with energy and power, artificial intelligence, and future industries. The investment is not a related-party transaction or major asset restructuring.

TREE NEWS update: Inspur Information said it expects net profit attributable to shareholders of RMB 3.80-4.10 billion for the first three quarters of 2026, up 156.40%-176.64% year on year. The company attributed the gain to rapid growth in the AI industry and strong server demand, alongside an expanded product line and higher value-added products.

TREE NEWS update: Chinese embodied-intelligence unicorn AgiBot Innovation has launched a new funding round of roughly RMB 1 billion to 1.5 billion, with the round nearing completion at a latest valuation of about RMB 50 billion. The company’s IPO plans have been put on hold.

TREE NEWS reports: Goldman Sachs said high-bandwidth flash (HBF) and other new NAND technologies could ease the AI “memory wall” and cut AI infrastructure costs, with a potential market of $40 billion to $150 billion assuming GPU adoption of 15% to 50%. The bank maintained Buy ratings on SanDisk and SK Hynix for their HBF lead, said Samsung Electronics should also benefit, and kept Micron at Neutral given its DRAM and HBM focus.

TREE NEWS update: Jump Trading has established an internal compute trading desk and acqui-hired Affaan Mustafa and Alejandro Soumah Fernandez, the founding team of Ito Markets, the market maker disclosed. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The move reflects trading firms moving faster into computing power as an emerging asset class amid AI-driven demand for compute resources.

TREE NEWS update: Character.ai filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware to pursue a sale of all or most of its assets. A Disney subsidiary has agreed to pay $20 million plus transition services for a non-exclusive perpetual license to some intellectual property and related claims, serving as initial stalking-horse bidder subject to higher offers. The sale is expected to close in late November or early December; the platform plans to keep operating, but will wind down if no buyer supports continued operations.

TREE NEWS update: OpenAI said it is investigating a degradation in the performance of GPT-6.1. The company disclosed the probe without giving a cause, a timeline for a fix or a scope for how many users were affected. No further details were provided.