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<a href="/company/baidu">Baidu's</a> autonomous mobility platform Apollo Go has secured a key regulatory approval in Switzerland, marking a significant step forward in its push into the European market.
The company said that AmiGo, an on-demand autonomous mobility service developed through a partnership between Apollo Go and Swiss Post subsidiary PostBus, received on June 12 a special operating permit from Switzerland's Federal Roads Office (FEDRO). The permit covers Level 4 autonomous vehicle operations in eastern Switzerland, a category in which vehicles can operate without human control under defined conditions. The approval allows AmiGo to conduct <a href="/industry/autonomous-vehicles">autonomous driving</a> trials under a defined regulatory framework and moves it closer to a planned commercial rollout in 2027.
The development builds on expansion plans disclosed late last year, when Apollo Go and PostBus announced preparations for autonomous vehicle trials in Switzerland as part of Baidu's broader effort to establish a presence in Europe.
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Under the permit, AmiGo vehicles have been conducting open-road testing since June 1 across an approximately 80-square-kilometer service area spanning the cantons of St Gallen, Appenzell Ausserrhoden, and Appenzell Innerrhoden. The trials are currently operating with safety operators on board while the partners gather operational data and demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements.
According to Baidu, the next phase will involve a closed-group user trial, followed by initial rides without safety operators once the required safety evidence has been submitted and approved. Regular driverless operations are expected to begin in early 2027, subject to regulatory clearance. Baidu said the service could become Europe’s largest planned automated public transport operation of its kind.
"Receiving FEDRO's special permit is an important milestone for AmiGo and a strong validation of our technology," Nan Yang, vice president of Baidu and general manager of the overseas business unit within its intelligent driving group, said in a statement.
Unlike robotaxi deployments focused on urban ride-hailing, AmiGo is designed as an extension of Switzerland’s public transport network. The service combines Apollo Go’s autonomous driving technology and RT6 vehicles with PostBus’ operational experience, targeting areas where conventional transport services may be less practical. The fully <a href="/industry/ev">electric vehicles</a> can carry up to three passengers and are accessible through the AmiGo mobile application.
The Swiss project follows <a href="https://0722vps.aieehr01.top/baidu-launches-fully-driverless-ride-hailing-service-in-abu-dhabi">Apollo Go’s expansion in the Middle East</a>. Earlier this year, Baidu launched a fully driverless ride-hailing service in Abu Dhabi through a partnership with local operator AutoGo, adding to its international footprint.
<figure id="attachment_159368" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-159368" style="width: 1920px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-159368" src="https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AutoGo-Apollo-Go-Dubai.jpg" alt="Photo of a robotaxi operated by Apollo Go and AutoGo in Dubai, UAE." width="1920" height="1080" srcset="https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AutoGo-Apollo-Go-Dubai.jpg 1920w, https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AutoGo-Apollo-Go-Dubai-720x405.jpg 720w, https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AutoGo-Apollo-Go-Dubai-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AutoGo-Apollo-Go-Dubai-768x432.jpg 768w, https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AutoGo-Apollo-Go-Dubai-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AutoGo-Apollo-Go-Dubai-480x270.jpg 480w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-159368" class="wp-caption-text">A robotaxi operated by Apollo Go and AutoGo in Dubai, UAE. Photo courtesy of Baidu.</figcaption></figure>
Together, the Switzerland and Abu Dhabi initiatives reflect Baidu’s overseas strategy of working with local transportation partners while navigating market-specific regulatory pathways. In Switzerland, the focus is on integrating autonomous vehicles into public transport infrastructure. In the UAE, the deployment centers on commercial ride-hailing.
The latest milestone also highlights Apollo Go’s effort to draw on operational experience from China. Baidu previously said the platform completed 3.2 million fully driverless rides in the first quarter of 2026, with weekly rides exceeding 350,000 in March. As of April, cumulative rides provided to the public had surpassed 22 million. Apollo Go’s fleets had collectively logged more than 330 million autonomous kilometers, including more than 220 million fully driverless kilometers, across 27 cities globally.

Baidu’s Apollo Go expands Europe plans with Swiss permit

Baidu

East Asia

China

Transportation

Autonomous Vehicles

Mobility

Europe

… that grafts removed after 14 days had formed a continuous endothelial layer and begun integrating with host blood vessels.
“This means you can use an autologous, living-cell, made-on-demand vascular substitute to bypass thrombosis and long ex vivo culture. And because it uses the patient’s own cells, the graft carries no risk of rejection and requires no donor matching, avoiding many of the immune-matching problems associated with allogeneic cell products,” Immortal Dragons said.
<figure id="attachment_162684" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-162684" style="width: 1920px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-162684" src="https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Immortal-Dragons-Wang-Boyang.jpg" alt="Photo shows Wang Boyang (right), founder of Immortal Dragons." width="1920" height="1280" srcset="https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Immortal-Dragons-Wang-Boyang.jpg 1920w, https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Immortal-Dragons-Wang-Boyang-720x480.jpg 720w, https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Immortal-Dragons-Wang-Boyang-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Immortal-Dragons-Wang-Boyang-768x512.jpg 768w, https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Immortal-Dragons-Wang-Boyang-1536x1024.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-162684" class="wp-caption-text">Wang Boyang (right), founder of Immortal Dragons. Photo source: Immortal Dragons.</figcaption></figure>
Another portfolio company, ImmuneBridge, is working on bottlenecks in allogeneic cell therapy. Immune cells from adult donors can vary widely in quality, while immune cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs, may have limited function and often require gene editing.
ImmuneBridge’s solution is to return to a younger source: neonatal umbilical cord blood. The company says its small molecule, IBR403, can greatly expand hematopoietic stem cells while maintaining their ability to differentiate into lymphoid and myeloid cells. The expanded cells can then be used to create immune cells such as NK cells, T cells, and B cells, effectively forming the basis for a young immune cell bank.
These projects are attracting attention because they point to a broader trend: replacement technology is moving from isolated procedures toward repeatable platforms.
China has been especially active in xenotransplantation, 3D bioprinting, and cell therapy, according to Immortal Dragons. This momentum does not depend on one or two standout products. The wider ecosystem is also developing, from early R&amp;D and manufacturing processes to regulatory reform and payment systems.
Take xenotransplantation. In 2025, Nature published a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08799-1">study</a> on a six-gene-edited pig liver transplanted into a brain-dead human recipient. The liver produced bile and albumin and was monitored over ten days. Chinese media and medical outlets have linked the work to Xijing Hospital and Dou Kefeng’s team at Air Force Medical University.
On the industry side, ClonOrgan said it operates a biomedical pig breeding facility roughly 22 hectares in size and maintains a breeding herd of about 2,000 pigs. PitchBook lists its investors as including Luminous Ventures, YuanBio Venture Capital, and an industry fund under Betta Pharmaceuticals.
<h3>Three bottlenecks to replacement technology</h3>
Despite the excitement, replacement products that can be commercialized at scale are still mostly limited to peripheral or relatively simple tissues, such as skin and cartilage. To expand replacement into organs such as kidneys and hearts, at least three major hurdles remain:
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">The first is vascularization. Tissue-engineered constructs thicker than roughly 100–200 microns face a diffusion problem: without capillaries, oxygen and nutrients cannot reliably reach the interior. Thin-layer tissues can partly bypass this constraint. Solid organs such as the liver, kidneys, and heart cannot. They require dense, stable vascular networks. Although 3D printing and biomaterials have advanced, clinically reliable vascularization remains one of the central barriers to engineered organs.</li>
<li aria-level="1">The second hurdle is immune rejection. Whether the replacement involves gene-edited pig organs, stem cells, or bioprinted tissue, the body may treat it as foreign. Current approaches include gene editing to reduce antigen recognition, combined with immunosuppressive drugs. But long-term immunosuppression can increase the risk of infection and certain cancers, and chronic rejection remains difficult to eliminate.</li>
<li aria-level="1">The third hurdle is age assimilation. Researchers worry that even if a young organ is successfully transplanted, it may be affected by the older host environment. Aged plasma, chronic inflammation, and signals from senescent cells could accelerate deterioration. Studies on age-mismatched transplantation suggest that senescent cells and aging-related molecular signals can influence graft outcomes, though the exact relevance to future replacement therapies remains under investigation.</li>
</ul>
Beyond these scientific hurdles, ethical concerns, high costs, and regulatory gaps will also shape commercialization. Replacement medicine raises difficult questions: who gets access first, how risk should be priced, how animal welfare should be handled in xenotransplantation, and how much evidence should be required before preventive use.
Still, bottlenecks are not the same as dead ends. The long-term goal of replacement technology is to reduce the pain, frailty, and disease associated with aging, while extending the years in which people can live healthy, autonomous lives.
From a wooden toe in ancient Egypt to a gene-edited heart entering a formal clinical trial, the basic impulse has remained the same: when the body fails, medicine looks for ways to restore what was lost. The next question is whether replacement can move beyond rescue and become part of how people maintain health before decline becomes irreversible.
KrASIA features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This <a href="https://36kr.com/p/3846923123640584">article</a> was written by Xiao Xi for 36Kr.

Could replacement technology become longevity medicine’s next frontier?

Medtech

Deep Tech

Health Tech

… href="https://saudigazette.com.sa/article/661928/saudi-arabia/saudi-vehicle-imports-surge-to-19-million-in-2-years-with-china-emerging-leading-supplier">Saudi Gazette</a>.
Saudi Arabia imported approximately 1.9 million vehicles over the two-year period. Japan, India, Thailand, and South Korea ranked among the other leading supplier countries, while the market share of US brands declined.
Saudi Arabia remains one of the world’s major automotive markets and continues to pursue localization of its automotive sector and supply chain.
<h3>Saudi bond issuance rises 22% in first quarter</h3>
Saudi Arabia completed bond issuances totaling SAR 16.13 billion (USD 4.3 billion) in the first quarter of 2026, up 22% year-on-year, according to data from the Capital Market Authority cited by <a href="https://www.arabnews.com/node/2646764/business-economy">Arab News</a>.
Private placements accounted for the majority of issuance activity, with 55 issuances valued at SAR 15.63 billion (USD 4.2 billion).
The figures indicate continued growth in Saudi Arabia’s debt market as the kingdom works to deepen capital markets, diversify financing channels, and encourage institutional investor participation.
<h3>Saudi economy grows 3% in first quarter</h3>
Saudi Arabia’s real GDP grew 3% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, according to data from the General Authority for Statistics cited by <a href="https://www.arabnews.com/node/2646495/business-economy">Arab News</a>.
Oil activities, non-oil activities, and government activities all recorded growth during the period. Non-oil sectors remained the primary driver of expansion, supported by gains in financial services, manufacturing, logistics, investment, and consumer spending.
The figures reflect continued progress under Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 economic diversification strategy.
<h3>Riyadh to host global security and technology summit</h3>
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Interior and Tuwaiq Academy will jointly host the Global Security and Technology Summit in Riyadh from December 18–20, according to <a href="https://saudigazette.com.sa/article/662056/saudi-arabia/riyadh-to-host-global-security-and-technology-summit-in-december-2026">Saudi Gazette</a>.
The event will bring together representatives from government, industry, and academia to discuss cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, smart surveillance technologies, and crisis management.
The summit will also feature forums, knowledge sharing sessions, and technical workshops aimed at promoting international cooperation and innovation.
whereRelatedArticle
<h3>Qatar Chamber publishes latest business directory</h3>
Qatar Chamber has released the 2025–2026 edition of its business directory, according to <a href="https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/07/06/2026/qc-launches-commercial-and-industrial-directory-20252026">The Peninsula</a>.
The publication is designed to serve as a comprehensive database of companies and institutions affiliated with the chamber, providing investors, entrepreneurs, and stakeholders with convenient access to business information.
Qatar Chamber said the directory serves as a trusted economic reference tool and supports business connectivity across sectors.
<h3>Project Qatar 2026 opens with 145 exhibitors</h3>
The 22nd edition of Project Qatar opened in Doha with participation from 145 companies, according to <a href="https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/09/06/2026/project-qatar-begins-with-participation-of-145-local-and-international-companies">The Peninsula</a>.
The exhibition includes 120 local companies and 25 international firms. Organizers said strong international participation reflects confidence in the outlook for Qatar’s construction sector.
The event provides a platform for contractors, developers, suppliers, and investors while showcasing developments in smart buildings, digital management systems, and advanced industrial technologies.
<h3>Qatar Chamber and Aqarat discuss real estate cooperation</h3>
Qatar Chamber and the Real Estate Regulatory Authority, known as Aqarat, recently held talks on strengthening cooperation and supporting the development of Qatar’s real estate sector, according to <a href="https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/08/06/2026/qatar-chamber-real-estate-regulatory-authority-explore-joint-cooperation">The Peninsula</a>.
Discussions focused on improving the investment environment, enhancing industry governance, and creating a more attractive and resilient business ecosystem.
The meeting also addressed challenges faced by developers, investors, and businesses operating in the sector.
<h3>Qatar residential sales reach QAR 6.2 billion in Q1</h3>
Qatar’s residential market showed signs of moderation in the first quarter of 2026 but remained resilient, according to a report by Knight Frank cited by <a href="https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/12/06/2026/total-residential-sales-value-reaches-qr62bn-in-q1-2026">The Peninsula</a>.
Residential transaction volume reached 1,582 deals, up 15% year-on-year, while total residential sales value reached QAR 6.2 billion (USD 1.7 billion) down 15% from the previous quarter.
Loan volume surged 85% to QAR 17.2 billion (USD 4.7 billion), indicating continued demand for financing high-value assets.
This <a href="https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/afuMCLRY7Uzz-tvY-sIldg">article</a> was adapted based on a feature originally written and published by Al Shasia. KrASIA is authorized to translate, adapt, and publish its contents.
Note: AED, QAR, SAR figures are converted to USD at rates of AED 3.67 = USD 1 and QAR 3.64 = USD 1 and SAR 3.75 = USD 1 based on estimates as of June 16, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.

Middle East weekly: Invest Qatar and QNB host dialogue, Keeta launches UAE restaurant SME program, China becomes Saudi’s top vehicle supplier, and more

Saudi Arabia

Qatar

Middle East

… target="_blank" rel="noopener">Formula 1 racing</a> since 2022 and previously sponsored individual F1 teams. It has also been the global technology partner of Italian soccer club Inter Milan since 2019.
But the scale of the 2026 World Cup will pose a far bigger challenge. Analysts with Bank of America, itself a FIFA sponsor, estimate that there will be more than 90 petabytes of direct tournament data to be processed. That would be 45 times more than at the 2022 Qatar World Cup and comparable to the likely global flow of data into YouTube over the tournament period. Adding in operational and broadcast data and simulations, data volumes at the 2026 World Cup could reach 2,000 petabytes.
"The 2026 World Cup is the first tournament where the data itself is a primary product," the Bank of America analysts wrote.
"Artificial intelligence moves from a support tool to the control system," they said. "Every team will use AI models, analyzing hundreds of millions of data points and 2,000+ performance metrics in real time. Digital twins of 16 stadiums, AI-run command centers across three countries, and 35-50m viewers per match push AI into a central operational role for the entire event."
Lenovo now has to make sure all those systems work—and that spectators know that it was the company's doing.
"This is a big deal," said Jeffrey Towson, a management consultant who works with Chinese tech companies. "[Lenovo] can get some credibility and exposure as an AI company."
Jing Jie Yu, an equity analyst with investment research company Morningstar, agrees that the sponsorship should bring financial returns for Lenovo.
"A strong showcase from Lenovo would be definitely accretive towards its brand equity, which plays well towards the company's premiumization strategy for its devices," Yu said, adding that she expected the company's infrastructure services and server sales to gain business as well.
With an implicit eye on its own business services division, <a href="/company/alibaba">Alibaba Group</a> announced a deal on May 29 to become the exclusive AI and cloud computing partner for the UEFA Champions League, Euro 2028, and two other European football competitions. Microsoft has a comparable relationship with the English Premier League.
"For Chinese consumer tech brands facing narrative battles in Western markets, sports has become what trade fairs were in the 1980s: the legitimate entry point into rooms where you would otherwise be unwelcome," iMpact's Pereira said. "The price tag is high, but so are the potential rewards."
Lenovo has long positioned itself as a technological bridge between the US and China, maintaining what it describes as dual global headquarters in Beijing and North Carolina since buying IBM's PC business in 2005. In 2014, it added on part of IBM's server business and took over the <a title="" href="https://asia.nikkei.com/business/lenovo-aims-to-repeat-pc-trick-with-motorola-buy3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Motorola phone brand</a> from Google.
"Lenovo has a unique position within US-China relations, as the firm has a global manufacturing footprint and longstanding sales relationships with Western enterprise and consumer customers," said Jacob Cooke, co-founder and CEO of consultancy WPIC Marketing and Technologies in Beijing.
Consequently, efforts by policymakers in both China and the US to separate the <a title="" href="https://asia.nikkei.com/business/technology/artificial-intelligence/china-to-push-state-owned-ai-data-centers-to-use-domestic-chips" target="_blank" rel="noopener">two countries' technology industries</a> over the last several years has sometimes put Lenovo in an awkward position. In recent months, both Palmer Luckey, founder of American defense contractor Anduril Industries, and the America First Policy Institute, a think tank closely linked to the administration of US President Donald Trump, have publicly criticized the American military's continued use of Lenovo computers.
"Their headquarters has a flagpole with the CCP party flag and then the Lenovo logo under it. It's nuts," Luckey said last month during a talk at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, referring to the Chinese Communist Party by its English initials.
Yet despite such sentiments, the Americas continues to be Lenovo's biggest market by revenue, generating a third of its global sales last year and 21% growth from the previous year.
Lenovo will be aiming to build on that momentum as well as to exploit the larger audience for World Cup games beyond the US Bank of America, which notes that 1.5 billion people watched the 2022 tournament final, estimates the championship could capture 7% of global internet traffic.
"It's a very visible platform to showcase that Lenovo is not just selling computers and hardware," said Mark Greeven, a professor of innovation and strategy at IMD Business School's Shenzhen campus and director of its China Initiative. "It's probably one of the best platforms to showcase AI capabilities."
That is certainly what Lenovo is aiming for, said Shafer from the US headquarters, "If the only thing the world remembers is that the PC company Lenovo sponsored the World Cup, then we will have failed at delivering on our goal."
This article first appeared on <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/spotlight/big-in-asia/world-cup-tests-lenovo-s-ambitions-to-challenge-ai-champions">Nikkei Asia</a>. It has been republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with <a href="https://www.0722vps.aieehr01.top/nikkei-teams-up-with-36kr-in-asia-tech-news-coverage/">Nikkei</a>.

World Cup tests Lenovo's ambitions to challenge AI champions

Lenovo

Artificial Intelligence

… Technology</a>, a developer of world models for embodied intelligence, has raised a nine-figure RMB sum in a Series A round. Jingming Capital led the round, with participation from Shandong New Growth Drivers Fund, Shandong Finance Investment Group, Oriza Rivertown, Xinneng Venture Capital, Nanjing Innovation Capital Group, Innoangel Fund, Shangshi Fund, Renai Group, Xuansu Investment, and others. Qianjue will use the proceeds to build its proprietary world model architecture, advance its algorithms, support deployment across use cases, expand its R&amp;D and project delivery teams, and strengthen commercialization. —<a href="https://36kr.com/p/3844720012151040">36Kr</a></li>
</ul>
whereRelatedArticle
<h3>Clear Robotics, VoidZero, DataMasque, and others made recent headlines:</h3>
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">Clear Robotics, a Singapore-headquartered maritime technology company, raised USD 1.75 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by Shipsfocus Ventures. Katapult Ocean, SGInnovate, M7 Holdings, MGS Ventures, and other investors also participated.</li>
<li aria-level="1">VoidZero, the developer tools company behind Vite, Vitest, Rolldown, Oxc, and Vite+, has been acquired by Cloudflare and will be integrated into the company. Financial terms were not disclosed.</li>
<li aria-level="1">DataMasque, an Auckland-based data deidentification and synthetic data platform, raised USD 4 million in a round led by Wavemaker Ventures. Existing investors OIF Ventures and Icehouse Ventures also participated.</li>
</ul>
If there are any news or updates you'd like us to feature, get in touch with us at: <a href="mailto:hello@0722vps.aieehr01.top">hello@0722vps.aieehr01.top</a>.

Deals in brief: Tin Men Capital backs Pints AI, Malaysia’s GreatAsic raises funding, latest China investments, and more

Venture Capital

Private Equity

Investment

Merger &amp; Acquisition

Singapore

Malaysia

Southeast Asia

India

… phase, reducing the abruptness of waking from deep sleep. When a user gets up at night, the lamp turns on dimly and switches off again when the user returns to bed.
In the first 48 hours after launching on Kickstarter, Sleepal raised more than USD 200,000, outperforming 90% of products on the platform, according to Fan.
Fan said Sleepal’s short-term business model will combine hardware sales with software subscriptions. In the long term, the company plans to expand from sleep detection into home-based health AI solutions. The multimodal sensing technologies validated in the bedroom could, for example, be applied in bathrooms for fall detection using millimeter-wave radar, or in dining areas for diet detection.
Fan ultimately wants continuous vital sign data to support chronic disease risk screening and prevention, turning the product into an entry point for at-home health management.
The bedside lamp is only its first step.
KrASIA features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This <a href="https://36kr.com/p/3844006775360002">article</a> was written by Qiu Xiaofen for 36Kr.

Can a bedside lamp track sleep? A Xiaomi veteran thinks so

A popular singer who was hired as the face of a <a href="/company/byd">BYD</a> brand has become a shareholder of the company, in a case that is garnering attention as a new advertising method in China's increasingly cutthroat auto market.
"I want to bring China's original music and technology, and the Chinese power that symbolizes this era, to a wider global stage," Wang Leehom said at launch event in Guangdong for BYD's high-end Denza brand last month.
On the same day, Denza announced it had appointed Wang, who debuted in 1995 and carries a wide fan base of both men and women, as the face of their brand.
Wang revealed that he purchased shares in BYD using the fees he received from the company.
"Not only did I gain a deeper understanding of BYD and feel that we share the same vision, but I also sincerely respect this company," Wang said when asked why he become a shareholder.
Celebrity spokespeople revealing that they acquired shares in that company is rare. Becoming a shareholder means that the company's earnings will affect Wang's own income, and that he will bear some responsibility as a spokesperson. Chinese media described it as "the most audacious form of 'investment-type advertising' among automakers."
Until recently, Chinese automotive advertising has been largely focused on vehicles' functions, but marketing using celebrities has been accelerating. At Beijing's Auto China exhibition in late April, actor Bai Jingting appeared at the launch event for an automotive brand involving telecommunications giant <a href="/company/huawei">Huawei</a>, eliciting screams from female fans.
There were 193 celebrities employed as spokespeople in China's transportation industry, which includes automobiles, last year, according to consumer data analysis company Endata. The figure increased 71% from 2024, the highest growth among all industries, surpassing apparel and internet.
"Automobile companies are shifting from promoting functionality to appealing to emotional connections through stars," Endata said.
<a href="/company/li-auto">Li Auto</a> announced last September that film star Jackson Yee would be appearing in its ads, the first time the company has used a celebrity as a spokesperson since its 2015 founding.
<a href="/company/xpeng">Xpeng</a> featured cellist Ouyang Nana, 25, at a launch event for a new <a href="/industry/ev">electric vehicle</a> in May 2025 in a bid to appeal to younger consumers.
Li Xiang, CEO of Li Auto, and He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xpeng, are both young founders that moved to the automotive sector from IT companies. They both symbolize the shift from gas-powered vehicles to new energy vehicles. And they both included their name in their companies, become the de facto faces of the brands.
But by 2025, the share of new energy vehicles in the Chinese market had risen to 48%, leading to a sense of saturation. As companies compete on features such as range, charging speed and high-performance driver assistance functions for EVs and plug-in hybrids, features and designs have become homogenized.
China's automakers are now urgently trying to cultivate new customer segments by redefining their brand characteristics and stories through celebrities.
The US-born Wang's emergence as a BYD shareholder comes as the company faces geopolitical pressure. Earlier this month, the US Department of Defense <a title="" href="https://asia.nikkei.com/politics/international-relations/us-china-tensions/pentagon-blacklists-alibaba-byd-and-baidu-over-alleged-military-ties" target="_blank" rel="noopener">listed the automaker</a> among companies it says have ties to the Chinese military. BYD said the move "lacks factual basis."
This article first appeared on <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/spotlight/electric-cars-in-china/byd-brand-ambassador-wang-leehom-uses-fee-to-buy-shares">Nikkei Asia</a>. It has been republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with <a href="https://www.0722vps.aieehr01.top/nikkei-teams-up-with-36kr-in-asia-tech-news-coverage/">Nikkei</a>.

BYD brand ambassador Wang Leehom uses fee to buy shares

Electric Vehicles

On June 9, Saidou Technology, a company backed by Seres, launched its new brand AIVA in Beijing. It also announced a partnership with Volcano Engine, a <a href="/company/bytedance">ByteDance</a> subsidiary, to jointly define and design what it calls an <a href="/industry/ai">artificial intelligence</a>-native vehicle experience, meaning one built around AI capabilities from the start.
Volcano Engine will provide AIVA with technical services, including the Doubao large language model and intelligent cockpit capabilities, according to the company. AIVA said the partnership is intended to improve in-vehicle interaction.
At the launch event, AIVA brand president and product manager Li Bo unveiled the brand’s name and logo. AIVA stands for “artificial intelligence voyage ahead,” meaning AI will accompany users as they move forward, according to the brand.
AIVA also introduced its vehicle development approach, which it calls “AI before the car.” The idea is to define each product around AI from the earliest stage of vehicle development.
Li said AIVA’s “AI-defined vehicles” will be developed by first building an AI-native organization, then using that foundation to create AI-native vehicle products.
Within that organization, AI is intended to be applied across three layers: perception, decision-making, and execution. AIVA said this structure will create a feedback loop that allows the organization to keep learning and improving.
At the product level, AIVA said AI can be used for data analysis, trend identification, needs assessment, and reasoning. Product managers could then use those insights to select development directions with clearer value. The company described vehicles developed this way as products shaped by AI’s understanding of users, with emotional warmth and adaptability across different scenarios.
AIVA also unveiled its first concept car, the Origin Concept, as an expression of the brand’s philosophy. The company said the concept starts from a large model and uses biomechanics to reinterpret the vehicle’s overall form, giving AI a physical expression that can be seen, heard, perceived, and responded to.
<figure id="attachment_162675" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-162675" style="width: 1920px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-162675" src="https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/AIVA-Origin-Concept.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1080" srcset="https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/AIVA-Origin-Concept.jpg 1920w, https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/AIVA-Origin-Concept-720x405.jpg 720w, https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/AIVA-Origin-Concept-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/AIVA-Origin-Concept-768x432.jpg 768w, https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/AIVA-Origin-Concept-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://console.0722vps.aieehr01.top/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/AIVA-Origin-Concept-480x270.jpg 480w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-162675" class="wp-caption-text">Photo source: Saidou Technology.</figcaption></figure>
AIVA’s first production vehicle, the ME7, will be unveiled in 2026, according to the company. Its full lineup will target the mainstream market above RMB 200,000 (USD 29,546).
The brand said it will maintain an efficient pace of product iteration and continue expanding its portfolio. All models will be refined around four core areas: AI interaction, emotional companionship, intelligent experience, and driving safety.
“2026 is being seen as the first year of physical AI. As a carrier equipped with sensors and actuators, the car is a core scenario for the implementation of physical AI,” said Yang Liwei, vice president of Volcano Engine. Yang added that he sees AI evolving from turn-based chatbots toward agentic AI and physical AI.
According to company materials, AIVA is not operated by a single corporate entity. Instead, it is described as an independently operated brand coordinated across several industrial partners:
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">AIVA is responsible for branding, products, and business development.</li>
<li aria-level="1">Seres provides support in vehicle manufacturing, supply chain management, quality systems, and engineering.</li>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="/company/catl">Contemporary Amperex Technology</a> (CATL) provides energy solutions covering battery technology, battery safety, and power battery charging and swapping systems.</li>
<li aria-level="1">A state-owned capital platform provides industrial resources, while Volcano Engine provides the technical foundation for AIVA’s AI capabilities and supports the optimization of its in-vehicle interaction experience.</li>
</ul>
Public information shows that Saidou was formed in late May through the renaming and restructuring of Landian Technology, which was previously under Seres. Chongqing state-owned asset managers together hold 34.5% of Saidou, making them its largest shareholder group. Seres holds 32.96%, ranking second, while CATL holds 9.89%, ranking fourth.
AIVA’s brand team also has ties to Seres. Chairman Zhang Zhengyuan serves as an employee director and assistant vice president at Seres, while Li was previously a vice president of the automotive group.
This <a href="https://xueqiu.com/2854806290/394026687">article</a> was adapted based on a feature originally written by SY and published on IPO Zaozhidao. KrASIA is authorized to translate, adapt, and publish its contents.
Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.77 = USD 1 based on estimates as of June 15, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.

Seres-backed AIVA debuts, with first car model set for unveiling this year

Seres

Luo Fuli, head of <a href="/company/xiaomi">Xiaomi’s</a> MiMo large model team, said Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 remains an interim-stage product, even as the model has drawn attention for its coding and agent capabilities.
Luo made the comments while discussing Fable 5 at the eighth Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (BAAI) Conference, held on June 12.
Anthropic launched Claude Fable 5 on June 9, describing it as its most capable generally available <a href="/industry/ai">artificial intelligence</a> model and saying it was built for demanding reasoning and long-horizon agentic work. The company said the model showed state-of-the-art performance on nearly all tested benchmarks, with particular strength in software engineering, knowledge work, vision, scientific research, and other complex tasks.
In one <a href="https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-fable-5-mythos-5">example</a> cited by Anthropic, Stripe reported that Fable 5 completed a codebase-wide migration in a 50 million-line Ruby codebase in one day, a project that would otherwise have taken a full team more than two months by hand.
Luo said Fable 5 marks a substantial improvement in coding and agent capabilities, but she argued that it is still best understood as the result of continued scaling across three dimensions:
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">The first is parameter scale. Luo said she speculates that Fable 5’s parameter count may be several times larger than that of today’s strongest open-source models, reflecting further scale-up during pretraining.</li>
<li aria-level="1">The second is computing power. She said the model appears to have required significant compute for test-time scaling and reinforcement learning.</li>
<li aria-level="1">The third is data. As AI moves from the chat era into the agent era, Luo said training data is also changing. Model training is expanding beyond internet text to synthetic data generated jointly by humans and agents, pushing data scale into a new order of magnitude. In the past, she said, the full corpus of internet text data may have involved 40–80 trillion unique tokens. Today, that scale has entered a new phase.</li>
</ul>
“Fable 5 is the product of a very natural and outward extension of large models across three dimensions: parameter scale during pretraining, data, including agent-generated synthetic data, and the combination of post-training and reinforcement learning. It is an interim model,” Luo said.
As foundation models and agent technologies advance, self-evolution has become a recurring topic in the industry. Anthropic recently published a post titled <a href="https://www.anthropic.com/institute/recursive-self-improvement">“When AI builds itself,”</a> outlining recursive self-improvement, or the possibility that AI systems could eventually automate the design and development of next-generation AI systems. Anthropic said that outcome is not here and is not inevitable, but could arrive sooner than institutions are prepared for.
Asked how she views model self-improvement, Luo said today’s leading models can already solve some abstract problems at the execution layer. By contrast, the previous generation of leading models could execute well only when human instructions were clear.
She pointed to how models are being used in research workflows. A complete research process involves proposing hypotheses, designing experiments, carrying them out, validating results, communicating with peers, and revising one’s views. Today’s large models, Luo said, can already design reasonable validation metrics, verify the accuracy of their own execution results, and plan the overall experimental process.
The main gap between models and top researchers, she said, lies in their ability to propose hypotheses or raise questions worth testing. That ability amounts to research judgment, including knowing when to stop pursuing unproductive directions. Luo said stronger models, combined with better recursive improvement systems, are gradually pushing that gap toward the frontier.
If AI’s capacity for self-improvement continues to strengthen, the next question is how it will reshape the world. Will it first reconstruct the digital world before entering the physical world, or will it regain an understanding of foundation models through the physical world?
Luo said language models and world models are advancing in parallel, but language models are moving faster for now. She said their current capabilities are better suited to recreating the conditions in which intelligence emerges from agent environments.
“We use a set of agent systems that can drive models to reach a higher ceiling, then layer models on top of them and let them freely explore in an environment. This allows us to design a more precise incentive system to drive models’ self-improvement,” she said. This path, she added, is already unfolding in the digital world.
In Luo’s view, the world model layer has yet to produce a highly efficient vision model. The first step should be an efficient generator architecture, followed by a scaffolded agent system capable of handling complex real-world tasks. The full paradigm then needs to be scaled. Language models, she said, are likely to clarify this path first.
This <a href="https://xueqiu.com/2854806290/394616477">article</a> was adapted based on a feature originally written by SY and published on IPO Zaozhidao. KrASIA is authorized to translate, adapt, and publish its contents.

Xiaomi’s Luo Fuli says Claude Fable 5 is an interim step in AI’s evolution

Foundation and Large Models