Real-time News

August 3rd - It has been learned that Ant Group's AI subsidiary, Ant Lingbo Technology, may be launching an independent financing round. This marks the official transition of this "physical AI special forces" backed by Ant Group from being wholly incubated by the group to facing scrutiny from the external capital market. The aforementioned source revealed to Blue Whale Technology that the core reason for Ant Lingbo's independent financing is the internal resource constraints within the group: "Ant Group has invested heavily in AI, and its computing power budget is facing pressure."

Biren Technology (06082.HK) announced that it has completed the "Day0" adaptation and optimization of MiniMax H3 on the flagship general-purpose GPU product Biren series based on the SGLang inference framework.

The China Earthquake Networks Center officially reported that a magnitude 3.6 earthquake occurred at 11:11 on August 3 in Gao County, Yibin City, Sichuan Province (28.54 degrees north latitude, 104.67 degrees east longitude), with a focal depth of 5 kilometers.

On August 3rd, the international standard "Technical Framework and Functional Requirements for Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology: Blockchain as a Service," led by my country, was successfully approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Representatives from Germany, the UK, Ireland, Japan, Portugal, and Uganda will participate in its development. The standard will define three key technical requirements: In terms of infrastructure and network, it will standardize the construction and operation of underlying resources and the blockchain network. Regarding service management and smart contracts, it will unify the platform service catalog and the entire lifecycle management process for contracts. Finally, in terms of data interaction and security, it will clarify on-chain data access, privacy protection, and security compliance mechanisms.

According to Yonhap News Agency, data released on Monday showed that South Korea's online shopping sales increased by approximately 10% year-on-year in June, driven by strong demand for mobile devices and automobiles. Data from the Ministry of Statistics and Census Service showed that online shopping transactions in South Korea reached 24.6 trillion won (approximately US$17 billion) in June, an increase of 2.3 trillion won compared to the same period last year. The report showed that sales of mobile devices more than doubled, reaching 892.4 billion won, clearly benefiting from promotional activities by Samsung Electronics. Spending on automobiles and related products also surged 56.8% to 1.19 trillion won, driven by strong sales of Tesla electric vehicles.

The China Earthquake Networks Center automatically determined that an earthquake of approximately magnitude 3.4 occurred near Gao County, Yibin City, Sichuan Province (28.56 degrees north latitude, 104.68 degrees east longitude) at 11:12 on August 3. The final result is subject to the official rapid report.

Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama declined to comment on whether foreign exchange intervention was carried out today.

On August 3rd, the Token Service Working Group (in preparation) of the Artificial Intelligence Industry Development Alliance (AIIA) recently held a closed-door seminar on "Token Cross-border Flow and Open Cooperation." The Token Service Working Group will systematically promote the construction of a token cross-border flow and open cooperation mechanism in the following five aspects: First, systematically conduct research on cross-border flow mechanisms. Compile the "Token Cross-border Flow Development Research Report," analyze the regulatory policies and technical constraints of major global markets, and clarify compliance boundaries, risk points, and feasible paths; Second, simultaneously develop dual standards and specifications for compliance and technology. Promote the compilation of the "Artificial Intelligence Token Cross-border Flow Compliance Guidelines" and the "Artificial Intelligence Token Cross-border Flow Technical Requirements," clarify compliance requirements for data export and technology export, and unify interface specifications for cross-domain transmission and computing power scheduling; Third, conduct pilot demonstrations in emerging markets. Relying on multilateral and bilateral mechanisms targeting emerging markets such as ASEAN and BRICS, and the advantages of free trade zones, conduct closed-loop verification of "compliant entry + domestic processing + compliant exit," testing the stability of technical solutions and the effectiveness of compliance mechanisms; Fourth, build a cross-border service supply and demand matching platform; Fifth, construct a token cross-border flow service system.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara: Japan and the United States maintain close communication on foreign exchange issues. If necessary, Japan will not hesitate to take further foreign exchange action.

August 3 - The Peruvian National Institute of Geophysics reported that a 5.7-magnitude earthquake struck 53 kilometers northeast of Ocaiacu, Leoncio-Oprado Province, Huanuco Region, at 8:42 p.m. local time on August 2. The earthquake had a depth of 152 kilometers, and there are currently no reports of casualties or damage.

August 3rd - Driven by major customers such as Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom actively securing production capacity, TSMC's 3nm process target of 180,000 wafers per month, originally scheduled for the end of the year, is expected to be achieved ahead of schedule in early Q4. Meanwhile, orders for the 2nm process are also rapidly increasing, with monthly wafer shipments expected to approach 100,000 wafers by the end of the year as planned.

On August 3, it was reported that South Korean financial regulators are pushing for the introduction of an "emergency action authority," allowing them to rapidly reduce the leverage ratio of single-stock leveraged products in emergency situations. Previously, these products were considered a major factor contributing to sharp market fluctuations. Regulators are also studying other restrictive measures, including setting a cap on leveraged investment amounts and further increasing basic margin requirements. According to Yonhap News Agency, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) will jointly draft amendments to the Financial Investment Industry and Capital Markets Act with the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) to establish a legal basis for taking market stabilization measures in emergency situations. The core of this adjustment is allowing financial regulators to temporarily adjust the leverage ratio of single-stock leveraged ETFs. Currently, single-stock leveraged products in South Korea aim to track a 2x return. With the emergency action authorization, the leverage ratio will be reduced to 1.5x or 1x if it is deemed necessary to protect investors.

On August 3, the Supreme People's Court released five typical cases on regulating platform operations and protecting consumers' legitimate rights and interests. The platform economy is an important component of the digital economy and a crucial vehicle for developing new productive forces. In recent years, new business models such as live-streaming e-commerce, short video operations, and platform agency operations have developed rapidly, demonstrating their prowess in key areas. However, prominent problems have also emerged, including blurred boundaries of rights and responsibilities among entities, insufficient adaptation of competition rules, unclear guidelines for legal operation, and a lack of protection for virtual property. These issues not only harm consumers' legitimate rights and interests but also disrupt market economic order. The five cases released this time cover multiple scenarios, including live-streaming e-commerce, legal platform operation, maintenance of market competition order, and virtual property transactions. They collectively demonstrate the people's courts' clear stance on regulating platform operations and protecting consumers' legitimate rights and interests, providing clear guidance for various market entities to clarify behavioral rules and stabilize business expectations.

On August 3, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) held a meeting in Beijing on July 28 to advance the special campaign to thoroughly implement the fair competition review system. The meeting heard reports on the progress of relevant local work, summarized the achievements of the phased work, and deployed key tasks for the next stage. The meeting emphasized the need to continuously strengthen efforts in areas such as strictly regulating reviews, enhancing supervision and safeguards, improving review capabilities, and strengthening publicity and advocacy to further promote the in-depth implementation of the fair competition review system and ensure that "all reviews that should be conducted are conducted" and "all reviews are rigorous." The meeting also stressed the importance of conducting focused spot checks on regions with a high number of unfair competition issues and areas where enterprises have strongly complained about improper interference in market competition. It called for the coordinated use of regulatory tools such as spot checks, interviews, notifications, and case filing to tighten and solidify review responsibilities and effectively strengthen the rigid constraints of fair competition review.

On August 3rd, the China Automobile Dealers Association (CADA) released its latest "Automobile Dealer Inventory Warning Index Survey," showing that the inventory warning index for July 2026 was 61.1%, a year-on-year increase of 3.9 percentage points and a month-on-month increase of 3.9 percentage points. The index remains above the boom-bust line. Dealers expect the car market to continue its weak off-season performance in August. High temperatures and sweltering heat in most parts of the country are suppressing offline customer traffic, and consumer hesitancy is not expected to improve significantly. However, the concentrated release of pent-up demand during the graduation and back-to-school season will have a certain stimulating effect on market demand, and sales are expected to be better than in July.

On August 3rd, the highest 7-day annualized yield of Tencent Wealth Management's "Current Account +" was 1.4550%, and the lowest was 0.7350%. The highest 7-day annualized yield of WeChat Pay's "Lingqian Tong" was 1.0090%, and the lowest was 0.9130%. The highest 7-day annualized yield of Alipay's "Yu'ebao" was 1.0130%, and the lowest was 0.9030%.

According to Futures News on August 3, as of 09:30 Beijing time, WTI crude oil futures fell 7.37%, while US natural gas futures rose 0.76%.

On Monday, August 3, the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index opened 102.88 points higher, or 0.4%, at 25,987.31; the Hang Seng Tech Index opened 32.7 points higher, or 0.68%, at 4,861.92; the H-share Index opened 46.97 points higher, or 0.55%, at 8,659.12; and the Red Chip Index opened 3.68 points higher, or 0.09%, at 4,196.8.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) conducted 63 billion yuan of 7-day reverse repurchase operations today, with both the bid and winning bids amounting to 63 billion yuan. The interest rate for the operation was 1.40%.

On August 3rd, Cao Cao Mobility and Xiangzhou District of Zhuhai City officially signed a strategic cooperation agreement to jointly promote the implementation of the "integrated air-ground-space" smart mobility demonstration project in Zhuhai. Cao Cao Mobility's first batch of autonomous driving test vehicles will soon enter designated sections of Xiangzhou District for on-site verification, and the autonomous driving fleet will be expanded in an orderly manner subsequently. Simultaneously, a smart operation and maintenance hub, the "Green Smart Access Island," integrating automatic battery swapping, intelligent quality inspection, and remote dispatching, is planned and constructed, with reserved space for the take-off and landing of low-altitude aircraft.