World models new driver for auto autonomy

World models — neural networks designed to understand and simulate the dynamics of the real world, including physical properties and spatial relationships — are emerging as the next strategic frontier for artificial intelligence-powered assisted driving, with automakers and tech heavyweights doubling down on the sector to improve how vehicles perceive, predict and act in complex environments, said industry experts.
"A world model understands what is happening in the physical world at this moment and predicts what comes next, including planning capabilities," said Arnold Gao, vice-president analyst at research firm Gartner.

DeepSeek launches new AI models with top efficiency and performance

HANGZHOU - Chinese AI tech firm DeepSeek officially released two new models on Monday evening - DeepSeek-V3.2 and its high-compute variant, DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale.
By implementing a robust reinforcement learning protocol and scaling post-training computation, DeepSeek-V3.2 performs comparably to GPT-5, according to the company. The AI model balances high computational efficiency while maintaining superior reasoning and agent performance.

Smart glasses sector set for rapid growth

Artificial intelligence-powered glasses will experience rapid growth next year as the fast-evolving smart wearable devices become a key gateway for next-generation human-machine interaction and inject new vitality into the global consumer electronics market, experts said.
Driven by the technological iteration and broad application of large language models, these intelligent and lightweight gadgets boast advanced features such as semantic understanding, voice interaction, image recognition and search functions, allowing users to access information more conveniently and interact with their surroundings in real time, they added.

Tech firms move into AI-powered healthcare

Chinese tech giants are doubling down on the fast-developing artificial intelligence-powered healthcare sector to accelerate the commercial application of AI and address the growing medical demands of a rapidly aging population.
Ant Group recently announced that its AI health app AQ has been rebranded as "Ant Afu" and released a new version of the app, upgrading its three major functions — health companionship, health Q&A and health services.

Deployment from lab to market

A humanoid robot conducts box-carrying training at a data collection pre-training center for humanoid robots in Hefei, East China's Anhui province, on Dec 4. ZHANG DUAN/XINHUA.
China's progress in commercializing frontier technologies has been supported by coordinated policy measures, capital investment and scenario deployment.