Robin Li (李彥宏) passed Wang Jianlin (王健林) as the richest man in China yesterday by just US$64 million, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index.
The founder of Baidu Inc (百度), China’s largest Internet search engine, became the wealthiest individual in the world’s second-biggest economy just 14 days after taking the No. 2 spot.
Baidu, whose name is derived from a Chinese poem from the Song Dynasty, was cofounded by Li on Jan. 1, 2000, in Beijing’s Zhongguancun — China’s equivalent of Silicon Valley. The company, which has grown from fewer than 10 employees to more than 17,000, sold shares on the NASDAQ in 2005.
Li’s net worth has climbed by US$4.8 billion, or 65 percent, to US$12.231 billion so far this year as Baidu shares rallied.
Wang, chairman of the closely-held Dalian Wanda Group (萬達集團), has seen his fortune grow by US$2.9 billion to US$12.167 billion this year. Four of China’s top billionaires are worth about US$12 billion.
Wang may reclaim the first spot after he sells shares in AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc, the US movie chain he bought for US$2.6 billion last year. AMC this week said it plans to raise as much as US$368 million in an initial public offering that would value the company at up to US$1.9 billion.
Wang founded Dalian Wanda, the country’s largest commercial property developer and movie theater operator. Wang’s wealth shrank to US$12.2 billion from US$14.2 billion in August when he overtook Zong Qinghou (宗慶后), chairman of China’s largest beverage maker Hangzhou Wahaha Group (娃哈哈集團), as the richest man in the nation.
Zong trails Li and Wang with a net worth of US$12 billion.
Ma Huateng (馬化騰), founder and chairman of Tencent Holdings (騰訊), China’s largest Internet company by market value, is the country’s fourth-richest individual with a wealth of US$11.5 billion, according to the daily ranking of the world’s richest people.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day