Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is a time-honoured tradition across the sporting world, just think Newcastle United in the English Premier League 1995-96 season, or the Atlanta Falcons in the 2017 Super Bowl and you get the idea. But has any team, anywhere, in any sport ever done it more emphatically than Chengdu Rongcheng did this past weekend? The Chinese Super League choke artists confirmed their status as potentially the most spectacular losers of all time when a 3-2 defeat to...

DeepSeek’s Harness artificial intelligence agent framework has reached 1.54 million daily active users less than three months after launch, the Chinese AI champion said on Sunday, marking rapid growth in a new battleground between leading Chinese and American AI giants. Users of Harness through the company’s official application programming interface were consuming around 92 trillion tokens a day as of November 4, the Hangzhou-based start-up said. That is equivalent to about 1.1 billion tokens...

Gillingham midfielder James Brophy admitted the players had “let themselves down” after a disappointing FA Cup exit at the hands of Barrow.

The board of US AI chip giant Nvidia has announced an independent investigation as chief executive Jensen Huang said in a memo to employees that he had been unfaithful to his wife. Huang admitted to an extramarital affair and apologised to his family and colleagues in the memo, which the company published on its website on Sunday. “I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry,” Huang wrote. He apologised and pledged to...

Dartford scored four first-half goals to defeat in-form Eastbourne Borough at Princes Park.

Artificial intelligence models will soon be powerful enough to master biology, presenting both benefits and serious risks, Tencent Holdings’ chief AI scientist and former OpenAI star researcher Vinces Yao Shunyu said during a rare public appearance on Saturday. The assessment comes as frontier AI systems are increasingly being applied to medicine and biology, which could accelerate discovery of new drugs and other treatments. However, experts also warn that malicious actors could use AI to...

Sha Tin Racecourse was transformed into an open-air fashion show on Sunday as stylish female racegoers took centre stage with elaborate fascinators, statement hats and dresses in every shade of pink and white. The spectacle marked the return of the annual Sa Sa Ladies’ Purse Day, which blends high-stakes thoroughbred competition with high fashion, drawing enthusiasts from across the city and overseas. Across the forecourt and grandstands, generations of attendees embraced the occasion, while men...

Gillingham were booed off again at Priestfield as they lost in the FA Cup first round for the third year running.

Gillingham suffered a stoppage-time FA Cup elimination at the hands of non-league Barrow on Saturday.

Gareth Ainsworth admitted late injuries disrupted Gillingham’s preparations but insisted they had enough chances to avoid an FA Cup shock.

Follow this afternoon’s football, including two FA Cup first-round ties, in our live blog.

Local fan favourite Alexandra Eala had to dig deep amid stops and starts to earn a hard-fought 7-5, 3-6, 6-4 victory over Maria Sakkari on Saturday, booking her place in the Prudential Hong Kong Tennis Open final. The evenly matched semi-final between the two seeded players was filled with extraordinary shots from both players, and a lot of rainwater and match suspensions. “I think it was just blank [during those rain stops], it took a lot of patience, but a lot, a lot, a lot of people stayed,...

The driver’s seat was empty and the steering wheel was turning on its own. Sitting in the back of a Pony.ai robotaxi in Shenzhen, I felt a flicker of nervousness. But as the car glided into traffic, the initial unease gave way to an appreciation of something far less futuristic: the blissful absence of small talk with the driver. My test rides in two of China’s major tech hubs – with Pony.ai in Shenzhen and Baidu’s Apollo Go in Beijing – offered a first-hand experience of how autonomous vehicles...

Bailee Brown said she retained her passion for “brutal and unforgiving” triathlon, but there were “things to sort out” after the Hongkonger’s subpar home World Triathlon Cup performance on Saturday. Managing a stress fracture of her left calf bone, Brown paid heavily for missing her bike in transition following the swim, losing touch with the main pack and coming home 50th in 59 minutes and 34 seconds. The reliably tenacious Hilda Choi Yan-yin placed 37th in 58:06, with Cade Wright 39th in...

When Emeric Payer plunged into the pitch-black waters of Victoria Harbour at 4am on Monday, his coaches’ old jokes about his endurance were still fresh in his mind. A former competitive pool sprinter in the 50-metre freestyle, the 21-year-old was known to fade minutes into longer distance swimming events. But this changed when he completed a solo, unassisted 45-kilometre circumnavigation of Hong Kong Island in the record time of 10 hours, 22 minutes and 59 seconds. The Hong Kong-French swimmer...

Andrew Wright fears that leading triathletes could desert the sport to compete in “simpler and easier” Hyrox, which this week inched closer to Olympic recognition. Hong Kong head coach Wright, whose team are set for a World Cup leg on Central Harbourfront this weekend, did not, however, share the concerns of triathletes who have voiced concerns over Hyrox potentially ousting their sport from the Games programme, after it announced a strategic partnership with World Triathlon. Max Stapley, Great...

Hong Kong tennis chief Michael Cheng Ming-git revealed plans to improve the skills of young players by sending them overseas to a training centre in Europe. Teenage players who were on the professional tennis path would be expected to spend several years playing at a higher level outside Hong Kong in Spain because “that is the only way up” in the game, according to Cheng. Spain was chosen as the location for the training centre because of its competitive environment and track record of producing...

China’s pure-play artificial intelligence chipmakers crossed an important milestone in the third quarter as several firms swung into profit, but severe supply chain hurdles and soaring memory costs cloud their long-term growth prospects. Domestic graphics processing unit (GPU) developers including Moore Threads, MetaX and Iluvatar CoreX are racing to fill the market void left by Nvidia, whose high-end processors face strict US export controls. These home-grown firms are competing fiercely to win...

The sweeping midterm election victory by US Democrats has triggered warnings from analysts that an impending regulatory clampdown could derail the nation’s multi-trillion-dollar artificial intelligence data centre buildout. Wall Street forecasters slashed their projections for Big Tech infrastructure spending hours after the vote, cautioning that a wave of proposed project moratoria and tighter oversight could stall up to 30 per cent of planned US facilities and force developers to downscale...

Gareth Ainsworth has issued a passionate FA Cup rallying cry to his Gillingham players.

The World Fencing League is sticking to its guns in its quest to showcase the sport “in a dynamic format and grow its global fan base”, ahead of the trailblazing competition’s Hong Kong debut next year. Founded by Olympic bronze medallist Miles Chamley-Watson, the WFL staged a glitzy, sell-out inaugural event in Los Angeles seven months ago. But the league last month found itself in a squabble with the International Fencing Federation (FIE), after the global governing body issued a waspish...

Elon Musk bet nearly half a billion dollars that political spending could keep Washington friendly to his sprawling business empire. On Tuesday, that bet came up short. As Democrats recaptured control of the US Congress in the midterm elections, the world’s richest man found himself facing an abruptly altered political landscape. After pouring a record-breaking US$474 million into political groups – overwhelmingly backing Republicans – Musk now faces a divided Washington keen to examine his...

Manager Gareth Ainsworth has welcomed the return of one of his “star signings of the summer” as Gillingham prepare for their FA Cup clash.

China’s second-largest contract chipmaker, Hua Hong Grace Semiconductor, is aggressively expanding into silicon photonics, as the company looks to capture the next wave of the global artificial intelligence infrastructure boom. Speaking on an earnings call with analysts on Thursday, Hua Hong chairman and president Bai Peng said the company planned to significantly expand its footprint in silicon photonics – a critical technology used in AI optical modules – during its next major capacity...

It was not just the “basic stuff” on the court: Wang Xinyu also wants to improve the mental side after her season ended on Thursday at the Prudential Hong Kong Tennis Open. Tournament sixth seed Wang did not look at her best throughout the match as she lost 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 to Antonia Ruzic, failing to get past the second round on her third appearance in the city. The world No 81 Croatian, who is ranked more than 40 places below Wang, will now play Philippines sensation Alexandra Eala, who beat the...

Dong Mingzhu chairs Gree Electric Appliances, a home-appliance giant based in southern China’s Guangdong province. Having worked her way up from a frontline sales job, she is one of China’s best-known figures in manufacturing. As a deputy to the National People’s Congress, she has long advocated for manufacturing innovation, higher incomes and greener consumption. In this interview, conducted when she was named an inaugural “Cool Leader” at an assembly of the UN Environment Programme’s Cool...

Invicta Dynamos face two tough games this weekend as they embark on league and cup action.

Gareth Ainsworth knows Gillingham will be under pressure to deliver in the FA Cup this Saturday.

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

Manager Gareth Ainsworth has told Gillingham fans to direct any criticism his way rather than towards his players.