Flash News

TREE NEWS update: iFlytek released its latest speech recognition model, Spark-ASR-2.0, the Chinese company said. The model will roll out starting tomorrow on the iFlytek Input app and be offered as an API through the iFlytek Open Platform, with further deployment planned across iFlytek AI glasses, smart office notebooks and iFlytek Hearing products.

TREE NEWS update: China’s internet regulator and relevant departments added three generative AI services to its filing list, including “YOYO Claw,” which provides on-device generative AI services for mobile phones. The announcement was made under the country’s interim measures for managing generative AI services, which require providers to complete registration.

TREE NEWS update: Lens Technology said it has overcome technical barriers in ultra-precision surface polishing and begun customer validation of HDD glass substrates, with small-batch shipments already underway. The company also disclosed deep collaboration with multiple leading robotics customers on precision component machining, joint module production and final assembly, adding that cumulative shipments of core robot components such as head modules, dexterous hands and joint modules rank among the industry’s highest. Specific customer names and supply details were withheld as commercial secrets.

TREE NEWS update: Alibaba Cloud released version 2.0 of its “Fanhua Plan” for AI product partners and upgraded its cloud marketplace into an AI application market. The upgraded program expands into multi-dimensional ecosystem co-creation, with Alibaba Cloud and partners jointly defining products, co-developing solutions and jointly reaching customers and markets. The effort combines cloud and AI capabilities with partner products and industry experience to turn general AI capabilities into solutions for specific business scenarios.

TREE NEWS update: South Korean AI startup Wrtn Technologies has selected Mirae Asset Securities as lead underwriter for its planned initial public offering. The company, one of the country’s fastest-growing artificial intelligence startups, is preparing for the listing. No timeline, offering size or valuation was disclosed.

TREE NEWS reports: Australian AI startup Firmus is in talks with lenders for a financing deal of about $10 billion to buy Nvidia chips for its data center in Indonesia. If completed, the deal would rank among Asia’s largest AI infrastructure projects.

TREE NEWS reports: Meta shares rose 11.34% on September 21 to close at $741.25, after its AI personal assistant Muse, launched September 8, hit No. 1 on the US Apple App Store free chart with about 2.5 million downloads. Wells Fargo raised its Meta price target from $640 to $796. The stock slipped 0.63% to $736.60 on September 22.

TREE NEWS update: Doubao Work rolled out an update adding two new modes, “Goal” and “Plan,” to its task feature, alongside a task queue, Markdown file editing and a dark mode. The company said all the new functions are now fully available on the Doubao Work desktop client.

TREE NEWS reports: ByteDance has significantly downsized the teams behind its Doubao AI assistant’s general Session and dialogue product post-training divisions, with the Session team cut by roughly half. Some staff were reassigned to Doubao commercialization and Feishu, while others were laid off. Despite Doubao’s daily active users exceeding 200 million, dialogue monetization has stalled and multimodal costs remain high, prompting ByteDance to redirect resources to Doubao Pro, enterprise offerings and Feishu productivity scenarios.

TREE NEWS update: Alibaba’s Qwen released the Qwen-Audio-3.1 series of speech models, upgrading its ASR, TTS and Realtime voice interaction models and adding the new Qwen-Audio-3.1-TTS-Next audio creation model and Qwen-Audio-3.1-ASR-Next audio understanding model. Five new speech models were launched together, covering understanding, generation, interaction and creation. Prices across the Qwen-Audio line were cut, with TTS down about 70%, Realtime about 85% and ASR 95%.

TREE NEWS update: Web data infrastructure firm Firecrawl has raised a $75 million Series B led by Smash Capital and launched Alexandria, a knowledge base for AI agents. Alexandria aggregates 82 data providers, 471 data capabilities and more than 113 million papers, READMEs, issues and technical documents across 28 categories, accessible via MCP, CLI and API. Firecrawl said internal tests showed Alexandria’s answers on roughly 1,000 directory-style questions were 21% higher quality than built-in web tools.

TREE NEWS update: Chengdu, together with China Telecom, unveiled the city’s first Token public service platform, the Tianfu Ciyuan Smart Manufacturing Factory, at a launch event in Chengdu. Built on a fully domestic IT stack, the platform aims to close gaps in computing-power scheduling and tokenized services, shifting compute from rack leasing to on-demand token-based supply.

TREE NEWS update: Huawei and Zhongcheng Technology unveiled a new storage professional service offering during Huawei Connect 2026. The launch targets enterprise digital infrastructure operations and maintenance needs, upgrading the storage service model from traditional O&M to intelligent services. The two companies announced the joint service at the conference.

TREE NEWS update: Grayscale renamed its Grayscale Bitcoin Miners ETF as the Grayscale AI Compute ETF, changing its NYSE ticker from MNRS to GCPU and its tracking index from the Indxx Bitcoin Miners Index to the Indxx High Performance Computing Index. The fund will invest in companies building and operating AI infrastructure, with roughly half its holdings in native AI compute firms and the rest in digital infrastructure operators that have publicly committed to moving into AI, including bitcoin miners pivoting to that business.

TREE NEWS reports: Hong Kong-listed large-model concept stocks extended losses, with Zhipu falling more than 10% and MiniMax dropping over 5%. The decline marks a continued pullback in the sector’s Hong Kong-listed names.

TREE NEWS update: Damao Technology, a computing-power and electricity coordination company, has closed a new funding round of about RMB200 million, announced on September 23. The investors, round stage and valuation were not disclosed. CEO Jian Yumin said the proceeds will go to R&D, upgrades to its models and platform, and industry consolidation, with one to two further rounds planned.

TREE NEWS update: Qwen Office and SAP China will jointly explore integrating office AI agents with enterprise management systems, combining Qwen Office’s task planning and execution capabilities with SAP’s enterprise software. The two sides will look at AI applications in finance, supply chain, procurement, human resources, sales and customer service. No financial terms were disclosed.

TREE NEWS reports: US Treasury Secretary has emerged as the frontrunner to become President Donald Trump’s AI czar. Trump previously tapped David Sacks as his AI and crypto czar before Sacks stepped down from the role earlier this year after reaching his service limit as a special government employee. No final decision has been confirmed.

TREE NEWS update: Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on September 23 that China could close its AI compute gap within roughly two to three years, relying on its own lithography and chip manufacturing capabilities. In an interview, Musk said China’s AI large models are overall excellent, with performance per unit of compute near the world’s top level. He added that China will solve its compute problem faster than most people expect.