ATR News Feed

Indonesia has expanded Kartu Kredit Indonesia, its domestic credit card network, to consumers in a push to curb the dominance of Visa and Mastercard. The platform, which was previously limited to government payments, is now being offered by eight major banks with transactions processed through the country's National Payment Gateway. [Nikkei Asia]

Shein is targeting a valuation of about $25 billion in its Hong Kong IPO, marking a steep decline from the nearly $100 billion valuation the fast-fashion giant commanded four years ago. [Reuters]

Malaysia is emerging as an under-the-radar winner of the AI boom, with its strengths in semiconductor manufacturing and data center development helping shield the economy from external pressures facing regional peers. The country's economy grew 6% in the second quarter, driven by a 7.5% expansion in manufacturing and 6.6% growth in construction as AI-related investment fuels demand for chips and digital infrastructure. [FT]

A surge in investor enthusiasm and strong backing from Beijing have pushed valuations of Chinese tech stocks far above US peers as the country's AI sector emerges as a credible challenger to Silicon Valley. Shanghai's Star 50 index has gained 29% this year and trades at more than 150 times earnings, compared with about 35 times for the Nasdaq 100 [FT]

The US is preparing to pressure dozens of countries to choose between rival American and Chinese AI blocs, warning they could be excluded from Washington's Pax Silica coalition if they also join Beijing's competing framework [Reuters]

Beijing is set to lift travel restrictions on Manus founders as the Chinese AI agent startup unwinds its $2 billion acquisition by Meta, paving the way for chief executive and co-founder Xiao Hong to return to Singapore, where the company is based [FT]

The Trump administration is opposing Apple's plans to source memory chips from China, as soaring AI-driven demand creates shortages and pushes up component prices. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Washington wants US companies to find alternatives even as Apple explores Chinese suppliers to ease supply constraints [WSJ]

A profile of Sony CEO Hiroki Totoki, the company veteran leading the Japanese conglomerate's shift from an electronics giant to an entertainment powerhouse as it bets on gaming, music and film to fuel its next phase of growth [WSJ]

SRI International and LY Corp's Z Venture Capital are launching a fund to bring Silicon Valley technologies to Japan, backing deep-tech startups in AI, space, defense, robotics and advanced manufacturing. The fund will start with 3 billion to 5 billion yen ($19 million to $32 million) in assets and use SRI's intellectual property portfolio to help build and scale 20 to 25 Japanese startups over the next decade [Nikkei Asia]

DeepSeek has released a developer preview of Harness, a software framework designed to help developers turn AI models into autonomous agents capable of running software, writing code and completing complex tasks [SCMP]

Hong Kong-based stablecoin payments company RedotPay has delayed plans for a US IPO as it seeks regulatory approvals and addresses legal issues. The company now targets a listing next year or later, rather than as soon as this year, as it seeks approvals in the markets where it operates [Bloomberg]

Asian private equity firm Trustar Capital is nearing a deal to acquire Alibaba's video game unit Lingxi Games for more than $1.5 billion. [Bloomberg]

Z.ai has released GLM-5.3, an open-weights AI model it says is its strongest coding model yet, delivering a 50% improvement over GLM-5.2 on its in-house coding benchmark while also developing unexpectedly strong cybersecurity capabilities during post-training [Z.ai]

Apple has developed a large language model specifically for China in partnership with Alibaba, marking a shift from its reliance on third-party AI models for the market [Reuters]

The Trump administration is imposing 100% tariffs on Chinese drones it deems a national-security risk, escalating its efforts to curb China's dominance of the fast-growing commercial drone market [FT]

Uber and Rapido held talks in May to merge their India ride-hailing businesses, but negotiations collapsed over the deal structure. Uber proposed combining operations under Rapido's management, while Rapido pushed for an acquisition that Uber rejected [Economic Times]

More than 53 million Chinese now work as ride-hailing drivers or food couriers, up 10 million in just two years, as the country's economic slowdown pushes workers into an increasingly crowded gig economy where incomes are falling and jobs are becoming harder to find [FT]

NXP Semiconductors has begun expanding its assembly and test facility in Malaysia, a move expected to more than double the plant's output when fully operational. The Dutch chipmaker said the project will add about 500,000 square feet of production space and begin ramping production in the first quarter of 2028 [GlobeNewswire]

DeepSeek is raising prices for its flagship V4 models by more than fourfold ahead of a potential IPO, marking a shift for one of the AI industry's lowest-cost providers. Even after the increase, its rates remain below major rivals, with V4-Flash costing up to $1.32 per million output tokens during peak hours starting Aug 16 [DeepSeek]

Tencent is set to become the largest shareholder in AI startup Manus by acquiring Meta's stake alongside venture firms HSG and ZhenFund, in a deal aimed at keeping the company under Chinese control. The transaction is expected to be valued at roughly the same level as Meta's original investment [Nikkei Asia]