Chinese AI model DeepSeek V3.1 has outperformed its global competitors in a real-market cryptocurrency trading challenge, earning over 10 per cent profit in just a few days.
The experiment, named Alpha Arena, was launched by US research firm Nof1 to test the investing skills of leading LLMs.
Each participating AI was given US$10,000 to trade in six cryptocurrency perpetual contracts, including bitcoin and solana, on the decentralised exchange Hyperliquid. By Tuesday afternoon, DeepSeek V3.1 led the field, while OpenAI’s GPT-5 trailed behind with a loss of nearly 40 per cent.
The competition highlights the growing potential of AI models to make autonomous financial decisions in real markets.
It also underscores the rivalry between Chinese and American AI developers as they push to demonstrate their models’ adaptability beyond traditional text-based tasks.
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The Dutch Economy Minister has spoken with his Chinese counterpart to ease tensions following the Netherlands’ recent seizure of Nexperia, a major Dutch semiconductor firm.
China, where most of Nexperia’s chips are produced and sold, reacted by blocking exports, creating concern among European carmakers reliant on its components.
Vincent Karremans said he had discussed ‘further steps towards reaching a solution’ with Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao.
Both sides emphasised the importance of finding an outcome that benefits Nexperia, as well as the Chinese and European economies.
Meanwhile, Nexperia’s China division has begun asserting its independence, telling employees they may reject ‘external instructions’.
The firm remains a subsidiary of Shanghai-listed Wingtech, which has faced growing scrutiny from European regulators over national security and strategic technology supply chains.
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In China, the use of generative AI has expanded unprecedentedly, reaching 515 million users in the first half of 2025.
The figure, released by the China Internet Network Information Centre, shows more than double the number recorded in December and represents an adoption rate of 36.5 per cent.
Such growth is driven by strong digital infrastructure and the state’s determination to make AI a central tool of national development.
The country’s ‘AI Plus’ strategy aims to integrate AI across all sectors of society and the economy. The majority of users rely on domestic platforms such as DeepSeek, Alibaba Cloud’s Qwen and ByteDance’s Doubao, as access to leading Western models remains restricted.
Young and well-educated citizens dominate the user base, underlining the government’s success in promoting AI literacy among key demographics.
Microsoft’s recent research confirms that China has the world’s largest AI market, surpassing the US in total users. While the US adoption has remained steady, China’s domestic ecosystem continues to accelerate, fuelled by policy support and public enthusiasm for generative tools.
China also leads the world in AI-related intellectual property, with over 1.5 million patent applications accounting for nearly 39 per cent of the global total.
The rapid adoption of home-grown AI technologies reflects a strategic drive for technological self-reliance and positions China at the forefront of global digital transformation.
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Unitree Robotics has unveiled its most lifelike humanoid robot to date, marking a bold step forward in the country’s rapidly advancing robotics industry.
The new H2 humanoid model, showcased in a short social media video, demonstrated remarkable agility and expressiveness, performing intricate dance moves with striking humanlike grace.
The 180cm-tall, 70kg robot features a silver face with defined eyes, lips and nose, alongside the tagline ‘Destiny Awakening – born to serve everyone safely and friendly’.
A model that represents the company’s growing ambition as it prepares for a mainland listing valued at around US$7 billion.
Unitree’s progress underscores the growing strength of China in humanoid robotics, a field increasingly dominated by domestic innovation and manufacturing capabilities.
As global competition intensifies, the company aims to position itself at the forefront of human-robot interaction and industrial automation.
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Under the revised terms, WhatsApp will not allow providers of AI or machine-learning technologies, including large language models, generative AI platforms, or general-purpose AI assistants, to use the WhatsApp Business Solution when such technologies are the primary functionality being provided.
Meta says the Business API was designed for companies to communicate with their customers, not as a distribution channel for standalone AI assistants. The company emphasises that this update does not affect businesses using AI for defined functions like customer support, reservations or order tracking.
The move is significant for the AI ecosystem. Several startups and major players had offered their assistants via WhatsApp, including the likes of OpenAI (ChatGPT), Perplexity AI and others. These will now have to rethink how they integrate or distribute on WhatsApp.
Meta also notes that the volume of messages from these chatbots imposed strain on WhatsApp’s infrastructure and deviated from the intended business-to-customer messaging model. Furthermore, by limiting such usage Meta retains stronger control over how its platform is monetised.
For third-party AI providers, the implication is clear: WhatsApp will no longer serve as a platform for generic assistants but rather for business workflows or task-specific bots. This redefinition realigns the platform’s strategy and draws a clearer boundary between enterprise usage and public-facing AI services.
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The European Commission has launched new ‘AI Antennas’ across 13 European countries to strengthen AI infrastructure. Seven EU states, including Belgium, Ireland, and Malta, will gain access to high-performance computing through the EuroHPC network.
Six non-EU partners, such as the UK and Switzerland, have also joined the initiative. Their inclusion reflects the EU’s growing cooperation on digital innovation with neighbouring countries despite Brexit and other trade tensions.
Each AI Antenna will serve as a local gateway to the bloc’s supercomputing hubs, providing technical support, training, and algorithmic resources. Countries without an AI Factory of their own can now connect remotely to major systems like Jupiter.
The Commission says the network aims to spread AI skills and research capabilities across Europe, narrowing regional gaps in digital development. However, smaller nations hosting only antennas are unlikely to house the bloc’s future ‘AI Gigafactories’, which will be up to four times more powerful.
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A jeweller in Hove is dealing with daily complaints from customers of a similarly named but fraudulent business. Stevie Holmes runs Scarlett Jewellery but keeps receiving complaints from customers who confused it with the AI-driven Scarlett Jewels website.
Many reported receiving poor-quality goods or nothing at all.
Holmes said the mix-ups have kept her occupied for at least an hour a day since July. Without clarification, people could post negative comments about her genuine business on social media, potentially damaging its reputation.
Scarlett Jewels is run by Denimtex Limited with an address in Hong Kong, though its website claims a personal story of a retiring designer.
Experts say such scams are increasingly common due to how easy and cheap it is to create AI images. Professor Ana Canhoto from the University of Sussex noted AI-generated product photos often appear too perfect or flawed, while fake reviews and claims of scarcity are typical tactics to mislead buyers.
Trustpilot ratings for Scarlett Jewels are mostly one star, with customers describing items as ‘tat’ or ‘poor quality’.
Authorities are taking action, with the Advertising Standards Authority banning similar ads and Facebook restricting Scarlett Jewels from creating new adverts. Buyers are advised to spot off AI images, large discounts, and genuine reviews to avoid falling for scams.
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India’s small towns are fast becoming global hubs for AI training and data labelling, as outsourcing firms move operations beyond major cities like Bangalore and Chennai. Lower costs and improved connectivity have driven a trend known as cloud farming, which has transformed rural employment.
In Tamil Nadu, workers annotate and train AI models for global clients, preparing data that helps machines recognise objects, text and speech. Firms like Desicrew pioneered this approach by offering digital careers close to home, reducing migration to cities while maintaining high technical standards.
Desicrew’s chief executive, Mannivannan J K, says about a third of the company’s projects already involve AI, a figure expected to reach nearly all within two years. Much of the work focuses on transcription, building multilingual datasets that teach machines to interpret diverse human voices and dialects.
Analysts argue that cloud farming could make rural India the world’s largest AI operations base, much as it once dominated IT outsourcing. Yet challenges remain around internet reliability, data security and client confidence.
For workers like Dhanalakshmi Vijay, who fine-tunes models by correcting their errors, the impact feels tangible. Her adjustments, she says, help AI systems perform better in real-world applications, improving everything from shopping recommendations to translation tools.
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Salesforce and Google have expanded their long-term partnership, introducing new integrations between Salesforce’s Agentforce 360 platform and Google’s Gemini Enterprise. The collaboration aims to enhance productivity and build a new foundation for intelligent, connected business operations.
Through the expansion, Gemini models now power Salesforce’s Atlas Reasoning Engine, combining multimodal intelligence with hybrid reasoning to improve how AI agents handle complex, multistep enterprise tasks.
These integrations also extend across Google Workspace, bringing Agentforce 360 capabilities directly into Gmail, Meet, Docs, Sheets and Drive for sales, service and IT teams.
Salesforce highlights that fine-tuned Gemini models outperform competing LLMs on key CRM benchmarks, enabling businesses to automate workflows more reliably and consistently.
The companies also reaffirm their commitment to open standards like Model Context Protocol and Agent2Agent, allowing multi-agent collaboration and interoperability across enterprise systems.
A partnership that further integrates Gemini Enterprise with Slack’s real-time search API, enabling users to draw insights directly from organisational data within conversations.
Both companies stress that these advances mark a major step toward an ‘Agentic Enterprise’, where AI systems work alongside people to drive innovation, improve service quality and streamline decision-making.
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The International Organization for Standardization has released a major update to ISO 27701, the global standard for managing privacy compliance programmes. The revised version, published in 2025, separates the Privacy Information Management System (PIMS) from ISO 27001.
The updated standard introduces detailed clauses defining how organisations should establish, implement and continually improve their PIMS. It places strong emphasis on leadership accountability, risk assessment, performance evaluation and continual improvement.
Annex A of the standard sets out new control tables for both data controllers and processors. The update also refines terminology and aligns more closely with the principles of the EU GDPR and UK GDPR, making it suitable for multinational organisations seeking a unified privacy management approach.
Experts say the revised ISO 27701 offers a flexible structure but should not be seen as a substitute for legal compliance. Instead, it provides a foundation for building stronger, auditable privacy frameworks that align global business operations with evolving regulatory standards.
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