Business News – November 23, 2024

1 - China's Xi pitches a 'shared future in cyberspace' at internet forum amid decoupling fears

South China Morning Post. Nov 20, 2024.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is promoting the idea of a "shared future in cyberspace" at the country's annual internet conference this year amid an intensifying US-China rivalry that has raised concerns about technological decoupling, particularly in artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductors.

The advance of AI technologies has improved humans' ability to change the world, but also "brought a series of unpredictable risks and challenges", Xi said in a speech delivered via a video shown to the World Internet Conference on Wednesday. China will pursue safe and "inclusive" development of cyberspace and is willing to work with other countries to "build a community for a shared future in cyberspace", he said, according to a report on the remarks by the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

The speech was published just a day after the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which reports to the US Congress, proposed a "Manhattan Project"-style initiative to fund the development of AI systems, referring to the US project during World War II that produced the first atomic bombs. Xi did not mention the US in his speech.

Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang called for global coordination in internet governance at the event on Wednesday. Ding said AI - along with the internet, big data and cloud computing - is empowering economic and social development, but "the digital divide is still widening and the cyberspace security situation remains grim". He also touted the need for the international community to contribute to a "shared future in cyberspace", according to a video of his speech.

The World Internet Conference is hosted by the Cyberspace Administration of China in the town of Wuzhen, in eastern Zhejiang province, where Beijing uses the event to promote its view of cyberspace governance, centred around the idea of "cyber sovereignty".

Beijing has projected pride in its internet governance model, which institutes strict government control over online content and services, while locking out many foreign services through a combination of technology and regulations known as the Great Firewall.

The conference once attracted big names from Western tech giants such as Apple's Tim Cook and Google's Sundar Pichai. Amid geopolitical tensions with the US that have contributed to technological decoupling, the event has become a more insular affair, despite being transformed into an "international organisation" two years ago.

In the era of AI, the US is trying to deny China's access to advanced semiconductors and industry talent, as China tries to catch up in a field it sees as critically important to national security. OpenAI, the firm behind ChatGPT, blocked developers in China from accessing its application programming interface this year, in a sign of an increasingly bifurcated AI landscape forcing people to choose between access to China or other markets.

The agenda in Wuzhen this year focuses heavily on AI, with panels on topics such as "responsible AI development and applications", "AI innovation and governance" and "AI empowering new productive forces". According to the published schedule, the conference will set up a special AI expert committee.

At the same time, the decade-old event is gradually losing its role as a gathering place for the who's who of China's internet sector. Yet a few big names still headline each year. Lei Jun, founder and CEO of smartphone and electric vehicle maker Xiaomi, delivered a speech at the opening ceremony this year.

2 - Alibaba combines e-commerce arms to tackle growing competition

Casey Hall. Reuters. November 21, 2024.

Alibaba Group will integrate its domestic Chinese and international e-commerce platforms into a single business unit run by one leader for the first time, the company said in a stock exchange filing on Thursday.

The Alibaba