Daily Buzz: 10 September 2026

Oil Surges Past US$100 a Barrel on Escalating Gulf Conflict

Iran said it attacked eight oil tankers and two US vessels around the Strait of Hormuz, and also claimed strikes on US airbases in Jordan after the US sank five Iranian tankers. The US military command denied its ships were struck. The escalating hostilities sent oil prices surging above US$100 a barrel for the first time since July. Iran said it targeted tankers that were attempting to use a channel in the Strait of Hormuz that Tehran has declared out of bounds. Fighting that resumed after a one-month lull has largely revolved around who controls the Hormuz Strait, which formerly carried a fifth of world oil and natural gas, as Iran attempts to close off the waterway and Washington declares it open.

US President Donald Trump said energy prices elevated by the Iran war won't come down until after the November mid-term elections in the US. The high prices are expected to hurt some Republicans in elections for all US House seats and a third of Senate seats. Trump also claimed the war will end "immediately after the election." Global benchmark Brent crude futures ended New York trading at US$101.21 a barrel.

Apple Launches First Foldable Smartphone, the IPhone Duo

Apple launched its first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo -- the headline event at the company's annual event introducing new devices on Wednesday. The company also unveiled the new iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max, along with the Apple Watch Ultra 4 and Apple Watch Series 12. The event was also the stage debut of the company's new chief executive John Ternus, who took over nine days ago. The ‌Duo is sized like a passport, with rounded edges. Apple says it's the thinnest iPhone ever when opened into a horizontal, 19-centimeter screen ‌that ‌also can be viewed vertically. There is a smaller single screen on the front when the phone is ‌folded. The phone runs on the A20 Pro chip to drive its displays and also a new C2 modem chip designed by Apple. Its battery supports 24 hours of mixed dual-screen use and can charge to 50 percent in about 20 minutes. The starting price is US$1,999, and pre-orders will begin in mid-October.

The new iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max also run on the A20 Pro chip, with charges that last 36-45 hours. The phones' new camera includes aperture control using physical shutters that are thinner than a human hair, letting in more light in dark scenes and handling better depth-of-focus shots. The Pro model starts at US$1,199 and the Pro Max starts at U$1,299. The phones will hit retail shelves on September 18.

Apple ranked second in the Chinese smartphone market in the second quarter, with a market share of 18 percent compared with leader Huawei's 23 percent. Huawei and Xiaomi, which had a 12 percent market share, introduced new phones two days earlier.

Xi Says China, UK Share More Common Interests Than Differences

Chinese President Xi Jinping, in his first official phone call with new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, said the two countries share more common interests than differences, Xinhua news agency reported. Both leaders agreed to pursue cooperation in sectors such as technology, education, healthcare and finance.

AI Researcher Predicts 10 Percent Chance of AI Killing All Humans

Jacob Cox, an AI researcher who quit his job at Anthropic on Tuesday, accused the company and its chief rival OpenAI of acting irresponsibly, predicting that superintelligence has a more than 10 percent chance of killing all humans by the end of the decade. His comments triggered a frenzy of comments on social media. "Do not underestimate the power of this technology," Coxon wrote in an online post. "These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources." The post was viewed more than 70 million times.

Separately, Anthropic on Wednesday said it has identified a ‌fourth cybersecurity breach involving an ‌early version of its Claude AI model. It said all affected parties have been notified but provided no details of the hack.

Norway Says Plane Carrying Zelensky to Funeral Nearly Struck by Russian Drone

The plane carrying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Oslo for the funeral of the king of Norway was nearly struck by a Russia drone ‌when taking off from Moldova on Tuesday, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre told public broadcaster NRK. Kiev has not yet commented on the incident. Zelensky was among a host of foreign leaders and European royals attending the funeral for King Harald V, 89, who died two weeks ago.

Tung Chee-hwa, Former HK Chief Executive, Dies at 89

Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong's first chief executive after the city returned to China in 1997, died at age of 89. Shanghai-born, Tung moved to Hong Kong as a child and later built a career in the shipping industry before entering public service. He took office as the city's chief executive on July 1, 1997, overseeing the city's transition under the "one country, two systems" framework. He resigned in 2005 because of health reasons.

Top Business

DeepSeek Prepares Shanghai IPO, Set to Launch V4.1 Flash AI Model

Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek has tapped Citic Securities as lead underwriter for its planned initial public offering on Shanghai's Nasdaq-style STAR Market, media reports said. The IPO is expected later this year. No date has been given. The company DeepSeek secured over 100 billion yuan (US$14 billion) in two funding rounds this year, driving its valuation beyond 500 billion yuan. Prominent backers include Tencent, CATL, JD.com, NetEase and IDG Capital. Meanwhile, the company is poised to officially release its V4.1 Flash model today, following extensive internal and public beta testing. Built on a new native multimodal architecture, V4.1 Flash outperforms the company's previous V4 Pro model across key benchmarks, delivering superior response speeds, higher throughput, lower compute costs and reduced overall processing latency.

UBS Report Says Global Expansion of China-Made Cars 'Unstoppable'

Swiss bank UBS, in a new electric-vehicle consumer survey report, said the global expansion of Chinese automakers is "unstoppable" and predicted their share of the world market will top 37 percent by 2030. The report said consumers in Europe and Latin America are showing growing interest in Chinese-brand electric vehicles, with 36 percent of respondents in Europe and 54 percent in Latin America saying they would consider buying one. The survey found that consumers believe China-made vehicles represent quality, safety and good value for money, and liked their technological features, including assisted driving.

China Rejects US Accusation of Tech Theft by Alibaba, DeepSeek and Others

China rejected a US report accusing Alibaba, DeepSeek and four other Chinese AI Firms of "maliciously" copying technology from American AI firms through a technique called "distillation." That process trains smaller AI models to use output from larger, more expensive ones, lowering the cost of training AI tools. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated its AI progress stems from self-reliance and open cooperation, urging the US to stop "false accusations." In a joint report from three US government agencies, the allegations of theft also included Moonshot AI, MiniMax, StepFun and Zhipu (Z.ai), saying Chinese AI developers targeted models from Anthropic, OpenAI, Alphabet's Google and SpaceX. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed that China "can never get ahead" of America in AI.

AgiBot Unveils New Robot AI Model

Chinese robotics startup AgiBot has introduced a new world-action model designed to improve how humanoid robots understand and perform physical tasks. The company said its GE-Act 2.0 model is the first to systematically validate a pre-training and scaling approach for native world-action models, which connects visual understanding with robotic movements. The model can learn from multiple data sources, including real robot operations, human first-person perspectives and failure cases. AgiBot said the upgraded model aims to address a key industry challenge that robots may appear to understand their surroundings but still fail to execute accurate actions.

Economy & Markets

China's Consumer, Factory-Gate Prices Rise

China's consumer prices in August rose 0.8 percent from a year earlier, in line with economists' forecasts. The inflation rate widened from a gain of 0.5 percent in July. On the wholesale front, producer prices increased 3.8 percent, faster than forecast, as higher global commodity prices increased costs at the factory gate. Core inflation, excluding volatile items like fresh food and energy prices, stood at 1 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics reported. Dong Lijuan, chief statistician at the bureau, said inflation figures were driven by higher raw-materials prices, seasonal food costs and rising demand from advanced technology industries.

China Approves CICC Merger With Two Smaller Brokerages

Chinese regulators approved China International Capital Corp's (CICC) proposed acquisition of two smaller rivals, paving the way for the creation of the country's sixth brokerage, with assets of more than 1 trillion yuan (US$140.5 billion), Yicai reported. The acquisition involves share swaps with Dongxing Securities and Cinda Securities, with Beijing-based CICC issuing about 3.1 billion new Chinese mainland-listed shares to absorb the two firms, which will be delisted. CICC reported assets of 997.2 billion yuan as of June 30.

China Regulators Reviewing Property Developer Debt Instrument

China is reviewing financial instruments used by debt-troubled property developers to avoid liquidation, Bloomberg News reported. The news sent shares in developer Country Garden tumbling 7 percent in Hong Kong. The China Securities Regulatory Commission has rejected the registration of a large number of mandatory offshore convertible bonds, a debt-to-equity instrument that is a key component in restructuring negotiations between property developers and foreign creditors.

Country Garden has reportedly been informed that registration of its planned US$13 billion issue of offshore convertible bonds was rejected. Companies are not required to obtain approval to issue such bonds but they must register the debt with regulators after issuance.

US Treasury Poised for US$6 Billion Bond Buyback

The US Treasury said on Wednesday that it will ‌buy back to US$6 billion in longer-dated Treasury bonds during its buyback operations today, part of attempt to rein in rising yields that are forcing the cost of borrowing up. The Treasury last month said it would at double the size of its buybacks to at least US$4 billion this ⁠quarter in an effort to support liquidity. Treasury yields rose after ⁠the announcement. Benchmark 10-year yields reached 4.845 percent, the highest since November 2023.

Copper Prices Jump on US Tariff Fears, Supply Concerns

The price of copper, an essential industrial metal, has risen to a record on the London Metal Exchange, with Chinese prices also rising to high levels, amid supply concerns and expectations the US will slap tariffs on copper. The most active Chinese copper futures contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange closed at 110,620 yuan (US$16,490) a ton this week, exceeding 110,000 yuan for the first time in seven years. Expectations of US tariffs have caused a large amount of copper to flow to Comex warehouses in the US from storage in London, China and elsewhere. Copper is vital in electrical wiring, plumbing and renewable energy technology.

Corporate

Excelland Robotics Surges 154 Percent in Hong Kong Listing Debut

Shares in Wuxi-based Excelland Robotics rose 154 percent from their offer price in their trading debut in Hong Kong on Wednesday. The initial public offering raised HK$577 million (US$74 million). The retail portion of the sale was 139 times oversubscribed. The company is a leader in supplying commercial service robots to sectors including technology and product development.

Pony.ai Launches Robotaxis in Qatar

Chinese autonomous driving company Pony.ai launched a fully driverless robotaxi service in the Qatari capital of Doha. The service, developed with Qatar's national transport operator Mowasalat, allows users to book robotaxis through the Karwa app. The launch expands Pony.ai's global footprint, which now covers nine countries across the Middle East, Asia and Europe. The company has already started public passenger operations in markets that include Singapore and Croatia.

CaoCao Mobility, Doubao Launch AI Ride-Hailing Service

Geely-backed Caocao Mobility announced the launch of an AI-powered ride-hailing services in collaboration with ByteDance agent Doubao. The services will debut in Beijing, Hangzhou and Suzhou, with expansion to other Chinese cities planned and exploration for use in robotaxi services.

Habit Debuts AI-Native Smart Residence

Smart residential technology provider Habit launched L32, the world's first AI-native Level 2 smart residential product, in Shanghai. Founded by Shen Yanan, former president of electric vehicle maker Li Auto, Habit's corporate mantra is "building homes the way you build cars." The new L32 smart residence carries a nationwide retail price of 399,800 yuan (US$58,794) for a usable area no more than 90 square meters.