Xiaomi Unveils New AI Voice Model to Boost Auto, Home Tech
We Should All Be Biking Along the Beach
Seeking Relief From Heat and Smog, Cities Follow the Wind
Chicago Curbs Hiring, Travel to Tackle $1 Billion Budget Hole
NYC Mayor Adams Gives Bally's Bronx Casino Plan a Second Chance
The new MiDashengLM-7B is based on Xiaomi's foundational voice model, which has been deployed in cars and smart home gadgets, with integration of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s open-source Qwen2.5-Omni-7B. The Beijing-based phone and auto maker detailed the advancements and provided benchmarks in a post on its WeChat account.
Xiaomi has been aggressively pursuing new growth drivers outside of its core smartphone business, with electric vehicles now fast becoming one of its priority business areas. At the same time, investing in the development of artificial intelligence has grown into an overriding priority across China's tech sector, and many of the leading companies have opted to make their work open source to secure customers.
Major Chinese internet companies from Alibaba to Tencent Holdings Ltd. have released various models that can handle images, video and sound in recent months to better compete with the likes of OpenAI's Sora. Both US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have emphasized the need for their countries to secure a leading position in the AI race.
How Podcast-Obsessed Tech Investors Made a New Media Industry
Russia Builds a New Web Around Kremlin's Handpicked Super App
Everyone Loves to Hate Wind Power. Scotland Found a Way to Make It Pay Off
What's Really Behind Those Rosy GDP Numbers?
Cage-Free Eggs Are Booming in the US, Despite Cost and Trump's Efforts
©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Sign up for Yahoo Finance's Week in Tech
By subscribing, you are agreeing to Yahoo's
Terms
and
Privacy Policy
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
10 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump pressures China and India to stop buying cheap Russian oil
U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing China and India to stop buying oil from Russia and helping fund the Kremlin's war against Ukraine. Trump is raising the issue as he seeks to press Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire. But cheap Russian oil benefits refiners in those countries as well as meeting their needs for energy, and they're not showing any inclination to halt the practice. Three countries are big buyers of Russian oil China, India and Turkey are the biggest recipients of oil that used to go to the European Union. The EU's decision to boycott most Russian seaborne oil from January 2023 led to a massive shift in crude flows from Europe to Asia. Since then China has been the No. 1 overall purchaser of Russian energy since the EU boycott, with some $219.5 billion worth of Russian oil, gas and coal, followed by India with $133.4 billion and Turkey with $90.3 billion. Before the invasion, India imported relatively little Russian oil. Hungary imports some Russian oil through a pipeline. Hungary is an EU member, but President Viktor Orban has been critical of sanctions against Russia. The lure of cheaper oil One big reason: It's cheap. Since Russian oil trades at a lower price than international benchmark Brent, refineries can fatten their profit margins when they turn crude into usable products such as diesel fuel. Russia's oil earnings are substantial despite sanctions The Kyiv School of Economics says Russia took in $12.6 billion from oil sales in June. Russia continues to earn substantial sums even as the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations has tried to limit Russia's take by imposing an oil price cap. The cap is to be enforced by requiring shipping and insurance companies to refuse to handle oil shipments above the cap. Russia has to a great extent been able to evade the cap by shipping oil on a 'shadow fleet' of old vessels using insurers and trading companies located in countries that are not enforcing sanctions. Russian oil exporters are predicted to take in $153 billion this year, according to the Kyiv institute. Fossil fuels are the single largest source of budget revenue. The imports support Russia's ruble currency and help Russia to buy goods from other countries, including weapons and parts for them. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
10 minutes ago
- Yahoo
South Korea pledges to help companies cope with higher US tariffs
By Jihoon Lee SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea will prepare measures to help companies cope with higher U.S. tariffs and expand into new markets, the Finance Ministry said on Tuesday, as it kicked off a task force to prepare the new administration's economic policy plans. On the domestic front, the government will come up with measures to boost short-term demand, as well as financial support for mid- to long-term technology development to enhance market competitiveness, it said in a statement. South Korea reached a trade deal with the U.S. last week, just days before President Donald Trump's threatened 25% tariff rate was due to come in on its exports to the United States. The trade deal set tariffs on exports from the Asian country at 15%, still higher than a baseline 10% rate and the near zero tariffs for exports under a Korea-U.S. free trade agreement. Still, topics left unresolved by the deal provide scope for more disputes as the two countries prepare for a summit between Trump and new South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in the coming weeks. Trump may use the summit to try to squeeze more concessions on areas such as defence costs and corporate investments, left out of the deal, while non-tariff barriers and currency could prove thorny issues, experts said. South Korea's Finance Ministry, however, sought to give a positive spin on the agreement. The deal reduced uncertainty over the trade environment, while a $350 billion investment package included in the deal will provide new business opportunities for companies, deepen economic cooperation between the two countries, and contribute to a more stable supply chain, the ministry said. The administration of President Lee also plans to prepare policy measures to foster new industries, such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors and "K-contents" and include them in economic growth strategies and budget plans due to be announced later this month. K-contents refers to a range of cultural and entertainment goods produced by the country ranging from K-pop to Korean dramas that have boomed globally. The ministry vowed to bring regulatory improvements to vitalise business activity, as it kicked off a meeting with the country's major business groups. Asia's fourth-largest economy grew in the second quarter at the fastest pace in more than a year on rebounding consumer spending and a surge in technology exports, but still faces headwinds from slowing global trade amid the sweeping tariffs. The International Monetary Fund last week raised its outlook for most advanced and emerging economies this year based on developments around U.S. tariff negotiations, but South Korea was among the exceptions, with its 2025 growth forecast revised down to 0.8% from 1.0%.
Yahoo
10 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Analysis-Chinese firms set for record US listings, undeterred by geopolitics
By Samuel Shen and Selena Li SHANGHAI/HONG KONG (Reuters) -A record number of Chinese companies are seeking a U.S. listing this year as onerous domestic listing rules and the prospect of better valuations convince them to brave volatile Sino-U.S. relations and U.S. calls for strict oversight of Chinese firms. In the first half of 2025, 36 mostly small and mid-sized Chinese companies went public in the U.S., following a record-breaking year of 64 in 2024, said law firm K&L Gates. Many of those firms went public through special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) - listed companies set up to buy mainly startups, making the startups public without them having to go through the lengthy initial public offering process. Waiting to list on the Nasdaq are more than 40 Chinese companies, including a mobile advertising service provider and a traditional Chinese medicine maker, Chinese disclosure showed. That number, which excludes confidentially filed listing applications, will take the annual tally of Chinese firms going public in the U.S. to a new high if all materialise this year. "I think it's a healthy year for Chinese IPOs. It will probably be a record year or near that," said David Bartz, partner at K&L Gates, who has built a "robust" pipeline of Chinese clients seeking first-time share sales in the U.S. Chinese firms have had a harder time going public at home since the government tightened listing rules in 2023, raising the appeal of listing via SPACs in the U.S., as well as that country's deeper pool of capital. Pursuing a U.S. listing amounts to a bet that calls from U.S. lawmakers aimed at diminishing Chinese access to the world's largest capital market can only go so far, bankers and lawyers said. One listing hopeful is racing car manufacturer Xinghui Car Technology, whose head raised a toast at a Shanghai hotel in June to celebrate a major step toward going public in the U.S. "The U.S. capital market is one of the world's biggest. It's liquid and allows easy access to funding," said Xinghui Chairman Song Wenfang upon signing a preliminary agreement to be acquired by Nasdaq-listed SPAC UY Scuti. Since Xinghui's celebrations, investors have pushed U.S. share prices to record highs, expecting trade deals to be the beginning of the end of uncertainty wrought by months of U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to impose steep tariffs. The China Securities Regulatory Commission, which oversees Chinese firms' offshore sales of securities, did not respond to a request for comment. SPAC SURGE Over 100 Chinese firms, including technology leaders Alibaba, and Baidu, are U.S.-listed, boasting a combined market value of about $1 trillion as of March, showed data from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. In April, tearoom chain Chagee debuted on the Nasdaq after raising $411 million in the biggest IPO of a Chinese firm in the U.S. this year. Of those seeking to list, a growing number are pre-profit or even pre-revenue startups, mainly in the tech sector, aiming for a quicker means of raising capital through a SPAC listing, said Karen Mu, managing director at Alliance Global Partners. That demand has contributed to the total number of firms listing in the U.S. via SPACs almost doubling last year to 57 and climbing to 76 so far this year, showed SPACInsider data. The increased Chinese interest, however, has caught the attention of U.S. lawmakers who called for the delisting of Chinese firms from U.S. exchanges as recently as May citing national security concerns. In June, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) singled out China as it sought to raise disclosure requirements for listing hopefuls. A spokesperson for SEC declined to comment on the Chinese listing trend beyond saying the regulator gathers information on the number of all foreign companies listed on U.S. exchanges. Spokespersons for the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq declined to comment. DOMESTIC HURDLES The rush of Chinese listing hopefuls heading West is being fuelled by high regulatory thresholds for listing at home as well as criteria skewed to spur growth of sectors in line with national interests. In China, a company needs to exceed a certain size or be profitable to qualify for a main-board listing. Alternatively, to list on tech boards, firms need to align with government self-sufficiency goals or achieve set levels of productivity. "In the U.S., as long as you can meet objective rules set by regulators, you can go public," said Steve Markscheid, managing partner of Aerion Capital, who also serves as independent director of several U.S.-listed Chinese companies. "Things are more subjective in China. The regulator needs to analyse whether the company is good or not. Only companies judged as good can go public." It takes nine to 12 months on average for an IPO candidate in China to secure regulatory approval, compared to six to nine months in Hong Kong and four to six months in New York, showed an analysis from Merits & Tree Law Offices. The lengthy approval process and high listing thresholds means that for startups, "listing in China becomes mission impossible," said Xinghui deal adviser Ronald Shuang of Shanghai-based investment company Balloch Holding. Sign in to access your portfolio
