Alibaba Plans HK$80 Billion Share Placement, Fully Fueling AI Ambitions
On August 23rd, according to the STAR Market Daily, Alibaba announced plans to place new shares to non-U.S. persons outside the United States, targeting gross proceeds of HK$80 billion. This marks Alibaba’s first new share placement since its Hong Kong listing in 2019. The net proceeds from this placement will be 100% allocated to investing in full-stack AI capabilities and strengthening AI infrastructure, further cementing Alibaba’s global leadership in the AI sector.
US AI Firms Slash Prices on Large Language Models
According to CCTV International, the price war in the AI large model arena is heating up, prompting several American AI companies to lower usage prices for their models.
DeepSeek Overhauls Peak-Off-Peak Billing: Weekends Now Priced at Off-Peak Rates All Day
As of August 23rd, DeepSeek announced a change to its peak/off-peak billing structure, effective from 00:00 on that Sunday. Under the new rules, weekends (Saturday and Sunday) will no longer be split into peak and off-peak time windows; instead, all calls made during those two days will be charged at the standard off-peak rate. Weekdays (Monday through Friday) will continue to follow the existing tiered billing model. Any usage accrued before the new rules took effect will still be settled according to the original fee schedule.
Oaklu Robot Debuts Three New Cooking Robot Offerings
At the 2026 World Robot Conference, Oaklu Robot unveiled three major new products: a multimodal cooking AI foundation named CookingMuse, a 3K-vision AI wok-cooking robot, and an embodied cooking robot called “Xian Chao Ark” (literally “Fresh Stir-fry Ark”). Notably, CookingMuse is touted as the world’s first multimodal cooking AI foundation model trained exclusively on real-world kitchen data.
38.15 Seconds! Tiangong Team Nabs First Gold at This Year’s Humanoid Robot Games
According to CCTV News, the 400-meter major group final kicked off at the “Ice Ribbon” venue during the 2nd World Humanoid Robot Games. After a thrilling race, the Tiangong Team crossed the finish line in 38.15 seconds to secure the first gold medal of the competition. The Zhuifeng Zaizai Team and Jinghong Dongli Team followed closely, taking silver and bronze with times of 39.45 seconds and 39.66 seconds, respectively.
Zhishen Technology: Cumulative Production of Embodied Intelligent Robots Surpasses 15,000 Units
At the 2026 World Robot Conference (WRC), Zhishen Technology revealed that as of June 2026, it has produced over 15,000 embodied intelligent robots in total, with a monthly output capacity exceeding 5,000 units. At this year’s conference, Zhishen is spotlighting its core positioning as “robots that actually get work done,” showcasing its full-stack technological capabilities—from core joints and full-body chassis to robotic arms, motion control (the “cerebellum”), and intelligent decision-making (the “brain”).
