■ Utilities
Shanghai strains grid
Freezing temperatures in Shanghai have resulted in burst water pipes and power failures that strained the city's power grid, state press reported yesterday. As temperatures dipped to -4.6?C, the lowest in recorded in four years, Shanghai's electricity suppliers have come under strain as residents turned up heaters to try and stay warm, state media said. Peak loads hit 8.02 million kilowatts during over the last four days, up 600,000 kilowatts year-on-year, the Shanghai Daily said. Although authorities have not restricted power usage during the week-long New Year holiday, electricity companies received frequent complaints of outages throughout the city, the daily said.
■ Hong Kong
China National in HK project
China National Real Estate Development Group, which is controlled by China's Cabinet, plans to proceed with plans to turn 20,000 vacant government-owned apartments in Hong Kong into budget-hotel accommo-dation, the South China Morning Post reported, quoting group chairman Meng Xiaosu. China National Real Estate has been in discussions with the government since March, it said. The project has met with objections from business groups in Hong Kong, it reported. The territory's developers are concerned the units would add units to a market where prices are recovering after a slump, and hoteliers are worried the guesthouses would affect their business, it said.
■ Hong Kong
Home sales surge
Hong Kong home sales surged in the first four days of the Lunar New Year ahead of announcements by developers to raise prices after the holiday, the South China Morning Post reported, citing Centaline Property Agency. There were almost 400 transactions during the four-day holiday, compared with less than 100 the same period a year ago, it said. Cheung Kong (Hold-ings) Ltd, Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd, Henderson Land Development Co and New World Development Co said they plan to increase apartment prices by as much as 10 percent after the holiday ended, the report said.
■ Telcoms
Nokia Wins US$117m order
Nokia Oyj won a US$117 million order to expand the wireless network of Smart Communications Inc, the largest mobile-phone company in the Philippines. Nokia is upgrading Smart's network with equipment using enhanced data rates for global evolution (EDGE) technology, which allows faster data speeds, Finland-based Nokia said in an e-mailed release. It will also expand Smart's network in rural areas. Demand for wireless networks may be picking up for the first time in three years as operators try to lure subscribers to spend more by offering faster services. Smart, a wholly owned unit of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co, had 13 million subscribers at the end of last year.
■ Cellphones
Olympus to make modules
Olympus Corp will make high-resolution camera modules for mobile phones, according to a statement by the company. A sales target of ?30 billion (US$282 million) after three years has been set for the camera module, the statement said. Monthly production of 100,000 units is planned, with expansion to 500,000 by the end of this year, the Tokyo-based company said.
OpenAI has warned US lawmakers that its Chinese rival DeepSeek (深度求索) is using unfair and increasingly sophisticated methods to extract results from leading US artificial intelligence (AI) models to train the next generation of its breakthrough R1 chatbot, a memo reviewed by Bloomberg News showed. In the memo, sent on Thursday to the US House of Representatives Select Committee on China, OpenAI said that DeepSeek had used so-called distillation techniques as part of “ongoing efforts to free-ride on the capabilities developed by OpenAI and other US frontier labs.” The company said it had detected “new, obfuscated methods” designed to evade OpenAI’s defenses
NEW IMPORTS: Car dealer PG Union Corp said it would consider introducing US-made models such as the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Stellantis’ RAM 1500 to Taiwan Tesla Taiwan yesterday said that it does not plan to cut its car prices in the wake of Washington and Taipei signing the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade on Thursday to eliminate tariffs on US-made cars. On the other hand, Mercedes-Benz Taiwan said it is planning to lower the price of its five models imported from the US after the zero tariff comes into effect. Tesla in a statement said it has no plan to adjust the prices of the US-made Model 3, Model S and Model X as tariffs are not the only factor the automaker uses to determine pricing policies. Tesla said
China’s top chipmaker has warned that breakaway spending on artificial intelligence (AI) chips is bringing forward years of future demand, raising the risk that some data centers could sit idle. “Companies would love to build 10 years’ worth of data center capacity within one or two years,” Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) cochief executive officer Zhao Haijun (趙海軍) said yesterday on a call with analysts. “As for what exactly these data centers will do, that hasn’t been fully thought through.” Moody’s Ratings projects that AI-related infrastructure investment would exceed US$3 trillion over the next five years, as developers pour eye-watering sums
Australian singer Kylie Minogue says “nothing compares” to performing live, but becoming an international wine magnate in under six years has been quite a thrill for the Spinning Around star. Minogue launched her first own-label wine in 2020 in partnership with celebrity drinks expert Paul Schaafsma, starting with a basic rose but quickly expanding to include sparkling, no-alcohol and premium rose offerings. The actress and singer has since wracked up sales of around 25 million bottles, with her carefully branded products pitched at low-to mid-range prices in dozens of countries. Britain, Australia and the United States are the biggest markets. “Nothing compares to performing
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