For the first time, the amount of inference data generated by artificial intelligence systems in China has surpassed the amount of data used to train those systems, according to a new government-backed report, illustrating how the country is increasingly adopting AI at scale. The report released on Saturday by the China Centre for Information Industry Development (CCID), which operates under China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), cited recent official data showing that...

Hong Kong tennis star Coleman Wong Chak-lam settled for second best in yet another ATP Challenger final after losing 7-6, 3-6, 7-6 to France’s Térence Atmane at the Seoul Open on Sunday. The defeat pushed Wong’s career ATP Challenger finals record to 1-7, with his only victory coming in Jiujiang in China in May, when he edged Adam Walton of Australia 7-5, 7-6 to become the first Hongkonger to ever win an ATP title. Last weekend, Wong lost to Australia’s Tristan Schoolkate in the final of the ATP...

Welling maintained their 100 per cent home record with a ninth successive victory to maintain the pressure on Isthmian Premier leaders Enfield.

Driving along the wide boulevards of Astana during a recent trip to the Kazakh capital, signs of China’s growing commercial footprint were everywhere. Chinese cars were becoming a common sight on the streets here, as brands from BYD to Changan made aggressive inroads in a market once dominated by South Korea’s Hyundai and Kia, said the driver who picked me up from the airport in a gleaming Changan electric vehicle. But it was not the rise of Chinese tech that had brought me to this energy-rich...

Gareth Ainsworth put family first when he left Shrewsbury for Gillingham - and enjoyed a winning return on Saturday.

Defender Andy Smith struck a late winner for Gillingham and boss Gareth Ainsworth hailed the defender as “sensational”.

Manager Gareth Ainsworth revealed the message he gave his Gillingham players before Saturday's trip after a tough week.

Manager Gareth Ainsworth returned to his old club and watched the Gills claim a much-needed win thanks to a late goal.

Unbeaten Hythe Town produced a standout result in the second round of the FA Vase on Saturday.

Catch up with all the week’s football fixtures and results here.

Follow today’s football action, including Gillingham’s trip to Shrewsbury, in our live blog.

Two of the region’s rising stars could be on a collision course after Filipino sensation Alexandra Eala and Chinese teenage starlet Sun Xinran were picked on the same side of the Prudential Hong Kong Tennis Open draw on Saturday. Eala will take on Alycia Parks in the first round, while Sun, who is set to play in only her second WTA250 event in as many weeks, has Czech player Tereza Valentova in her way. The 46-year-old seven-time grand slam champion Venus Williams will play compatriot Mary...

Apple’s long-awaited artificial intelligence features will be officially launched in China in December, ending two years of regulatory uncertainty as the US tech giant seeks to bring advanced technologies to its second-largest market with the help of Alibaba Group Holding. The first batch of Apple Intelligence services will roll out to Chinese iPhone users alongside the iOS 27.3 update in December, following an open beta test with developers starting November 4, the US company said in a...

Gillingham boss Gareth Ainsworth wants the club’s fans to channel their support towards the players.

Gillingham manager Gareth Ainsworth has confirmed the extent of Eli King’s injury.

Artificial intelligence is no longer merely the driving force behind global semiconductor demand, but is also actively reinventing how chips are designed and built, industry leaders and scientists said at a major science forum in Shanghai on Friday. Chen Yunji, co-founder of AI chipmaker Cambricon Technologies, predicted that the integration between AI and chip design would eventually automate the chip design process entirely. “In the [next] 10 years, the most important development … is the RSI...

Soaring artificial intelligence revenues have failed to shield Intel, Amazon and Google’s parent company Alphabet from a brutal Wall Street sell-off, as their latest quarterly results deepened investor jitters over mounting capital spending and delayed returns. Intel plunged about 23 per cent in extended trading on Thursday, while Amazon shed 7.3 per cent. Alphabet tumbled 12.6 per cent during the regular session in its worst day on record, dragging the Nasdaq Composite down 1.4 per cent and...

More than a month after sparking public outrage by soiling herself during Hyrox Beijing, Australian athlete Joanna Wietrzyk has announced she is “super excited” about returning to competition. In a new video posted on her social media, the 24-year-old said the past several weeks gave her an opportunity to re-examine the incident and learn from it. “So I’ve had some time to reflect over the past six to eight weeks of everything that happened in Beijing,” she said, offering another apology. “I...

Even Asia’s first UFC world champion, Zhang Weili, cannot escape the pressure of Chinese parents pushing her to get married. A year ago, Zhang, now 37, said she was glad her family was not rushing her to marry, preferring to focus on her fighting career and leave relationships to fate. But in an interview posted on social media this week, Zhang revealed her parents grew deeply concerned about her love life during the first half of the year, saying they were “pushing really hard”. In the...

John ‘Stingray’ Ray Onifa will tackle the Barclays MoonTrekker on Friday, but he said it was “much more difficult” to talk about navigating Hong Kong’s hills and valleys than actually doing it. And that’s despite the Philippine star, who is considered one of the best trail runners in Asia, carrying a long-term back injury that still leaves him “feeling the pain”. Onifa also has a perfect record to defend, having won the 50-kilometre race on his debut in 2018 and the 40km version five years...

Kent head coach Adam Hollioake is to take charge of a team at the Italia T10 Cricket competition - co-owned by arguably England’s best bowler.

Seam bowler Matt Milnes praised Kent head coach Adam Hollioake’s approach during their promotion-winning season.

The Portland Trail Blazers’ decision to assign centre Yang Hansen to their NBA G League affiliate has caught many Chinese basketball fans off guard, sparking a flurry of online debate over his current standing and future in the league. The Trail Blazers announced on social media early Thursday morning that the 21-year-old had been assigned to the Rip City Remix. The move came just three games into Portland’s 2026-27 NBA season as Yang continued to struggle to enter the regular rotation or secure...

Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings is using Southeast Asia as a launch pad to take its “cost-effective” artificial intelligence tools global, fronted by its workplace assistant WorkBuddy, amid cutthroat competition at home. The company was targeting existing regional customers of its cloud computing and big data services, particularly in markets such as Indonesia, according to Dowson Tong, CEO of Tencent’s Cloud and Smart Industries Group. The international push coincided with triple-digit...

Gillingham’s weekend thrashing by Grimsby has left boss Gareth Ainsworth questioning both personnel and tactics.

Shen Jiaoqi, a banker living in southern China’s Guangdong province, cannot stop watching microdramas. The shows are so addictive that she sometimes spends entire days gazing at her phone. One time, she even kept watching while she showered. “Honestly, I was watching for the eye candy rather than the plots,” she said. “The AI has really made the characters look stunning.” Shen is far from alone. Microdramas have exploded in popularity in China over the past few years, offering viewers a quick...

Catch up with all the week’s football fixtures and results here.

As investor anxiety over an artificial intelligence bubble mounts, SpaceX’s Elon Musk and Nvidia chief Jensen Huang have offered starkly divergent outlooks on whether the specialist cloud providers powering the boom can survive their mounting debts. While Musk has warned of impending collapses and consolidation among the more than 200 dedicated graphics processing unit (GPU) rental ventures known as “neoclouds”, Huang remains bullish, insisting that robust market demand will unlock the capital...

Chinese swimmers showcased their strength in depth with record-breaking performances by veterans and rising stars at the national championships in Beijing. As of Tuesday, swimmers had broken one world, six Asian and multiple national records. Zhang Yufei and Zhang Zhanshuo set Asian short-course records in the women’s 100m butterfly and men’s 800m freestyle, clocking 54.87 seconds and seven minutes 28.61 seconds respectively to claim gold. The national event is the official selection trial for...

Huawei Technologies is already integrating elements of the Tau Scaling Law – a new chip design principle that helps the company overcome US export controls – into its wireless communications network, as it pushes for broader adoption across its products. The Chinese tech giant is using the “time compression” concept based on its Tau Scaling Law in its next-generation wireless base stations, according to a company statement released on Wednesday, and the new design is already delivering tangible...