Trump signs executive order for AI project
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order to launch the Genesis Mission Project designed to integrate the country’s supercomputers and datasets into a unified artificial intelligence platform. The goal of project is to automate experimental design and accelerate simulations to generate predictive models, thereby improving the research and development efficiency of the federal government.
Amazon to build $50 billion AI infrastructure for U.S. government
Amazon Web Services Inc. on Monday announced a $50 billion investment to build the first AI and high-performance computing infrastructure for the U.S. government. The new investment will add 1.3 gigawatts of computing power, enabling government agencies to speed up discovery and decision-making for various tasks. By combining simulation and modeling data with AI, government departments can complete work in hours that previously took weeks or months, using autonomous experimental guidance and real-time feedback loops. Construction on the project is scheduled to begin in 2026.
Xiaomi and its founder stem stock rout with $115 million buyback
Xiaomi Corp. and its founder Lei Jun have gone on a stock buyback spree, repurchasing more than HK$900 million ($115.6 million) of the company’s shares on three consecutive trading days, as its stock continues to slump. Xiaomi said in an exchange filing that Lei on Monday bought 2.6 million company shares for over HK$100 million via his wholly-owned Team Guide Ltd. His move followed the firm’s two buybacks totaling more than HK$811 million that took place on Thursday and Friday, respectively. The moves come as the Hong Kong-listed electronics giant’s shares have plunged more than 30% since late September, erasing over HK$550 billion in market value and making it a laggard on the Hang Seng Tech Index.
Alibaba and its fintech arm Ant race to catch rivals in China’s AI app boom
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and its affiliate Ant Group Co. Ltd. are accelerating efforts to capture consumer attention in China’s booming AI sector. The companies’ newly released AI apps have notched millions of downloads in just days, bolstered by aggressive marketing campaigns. Alibaba said its AI-powered chatbot app Qianwen surpassed 10 million downloads within a week of launching public testing on Nov. 17. Ant’s vibe coding app LingGuang, which debuted a day later, topped 2 million downloads in its first six days. The surge has propelled Qianwen to fourth place and LingGuang to sixth on China’s Apple App Store free-app chart. The top spots are held by ByteDance Ltd.’s Doubao, short-drama app Hongguo, and a music service from ByteDance-owned Douyin.
Anthropic releases new model Claude Opus 4.5
U.S. AI firm Anthropic on Monday launched its Claude Opus 4.5 model. Anthropic claimed the model is currently the world’s best-performing for coding, intelligent agents, and computer applications. It also said the model significantly outperforms others in daily tasks such as in-depth research and processing slideshows and spreadsheets.
Malaysia to bar unaccompanied teens under 16 from social media
Malaysia’s cabinet announced on Sunday that starting Jan. 1, 2026, teenagers under 16 will be prohibited from creating social media accounts or using such platforms alone, without parental supervision. Malaysia is the second country after Australia to impose restrictions on social media use for minors under 16.
WeRide’s third-quarter robotaxi revenue rises 761%
Autonomous driving startup WeRide Inc. said in its latest earnings report on Monday that its robotaxi revenue reached 35.3 million yuan in the third quarter, a year-on-year increase of 761%. The share of robotaxi revenue in its total revenue rose to 20.7% in the third quarter, up from 5.8% for the full year 2024.
