Daily Buzz: 29 July 2026

Top News

US Bans Imports of Chinese Humanoid Robots, Power Inverters

The Trump administration banned imports of advanced robots and power inverters, citing the need to protect the US artificial intelligence supply chain from national security threats. The ban targets China, the world's biggest maker of robots, and would affect leading robotics makers such as Unitree, Agibot and UBTech. The Federal Communications Commission ban, announced on Tuesday, bars imports of new humanoid and quadruped robots, in addition to power inverters that enable renewable energy sources and batteries to connect to grids and data equipment. China supplied about a third of inverters imported by the US in 2024. "Advanced robotic devices collect data that could be leveraged by malign actors to surveil Americans, enhance the capabilities of foreign intelligence services or remotely commandeer the robots," the commission said on Tuesday. China is expected to strongly condemn the action, as it has in the past with US bans on drones, telecom equipment and other of its tech-related exports.

Iran Launches Ballistic Missiles Targeting US Forces

Iran late Tuesday targeted US forces in the Middle East with several ballistic missiles, breaking a multi-day lull in fighting. The US Central Command said all missiles were intercepted. Axios reported that the Iranian missiles were aimed at a US military base in Jordan. Global benchmark Brent futures rose 3 percent on the news toUS$86.60 a barrel. Iran had pledged not to resume attacks if the US did likewise. President Donald Trump has been threatening to launch the biggest assault of the war against Iran. Separately, the UK Maritime Trade Operations Center reported "suspicious activity" in the Red Sea in a post on X. It didn't say whether the incident is related to earlier attacks there on Saudi shipping by Iran-backed Houthi militia.

Japanese Earthquake Kills at Least 2, Damages Buildings

A shallow magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck the Japanese island of Kyushu on Tuesday, collapsing floors at a shopping mall, toppling a huge tower at a paper factory and tearing off part of a highway bridge. In the city of Kumamoto, at least two people were killed after an explosion in the Aeon mall just after the quake, with up to 30 people reported trapped inside. An estimated 100 people were injured in the quake. Kumamoto is hub for chip manufacturing.

Trump Meets With Netanyahu, Zelensky

US President Donald Trump hosted back-to-back White House meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – key figures in two unresolved wars. It was Netanyahu's first visit since Israel and the US launched attacks on Iraq on February 28, with their bilateral opinions on further conduct of the conflict diverging in recent months. Zelensky came to Washington with stronger credentials after gaining an upper hand in its war with Russia through deployment of self-developed drones. Both foreign visitors were in Washington to attend the funeral of US Senate heavyweight Lindsey Graham, who championed their causes.

Top Business

SK Hynix Misses Q2 Estimates as AI Memory Supercycle Faces Its First Real Test

South Korea's SK Hynix reported second-quarter revenue of 79.32 trillion won (US$54.6 billion) and operating profit of 60.54 trillion won, both all-time highs. However, the results missed the consensus forecasts compiled by Yonhap Infomax by about 5 percent. SK Hynix delivered an operating margin of 76.3 percent, underscoring the profitability of the AI memory cycle. Net profit reached a record 93.92 trillion won. The company's initial earnings release, however, did not fully explain the non-operating gains behind the figure. Management is expected to provide further details during Wednesday's earnings call.

The earnings arrive at a difficult moment for the stock. Seoul-and-Nasdaq-listed SK Hynix shares fell 14.7 percent in Korea and nearly 9 percent in New York on Tuesday, extending a broader semiconductor selloff driven by concerns that the AI memory cycle may be entering an unsustainable phase. Investors are also watching intensifying competition from the likes of China's CXMT, whose rapid expansion has become an increasingly important variable in the global memory market.

The shares had a strong rebound to surge over 3 perccent as Korean stock market opens on Tuesday morning. Investors focus have shifted to the earnings call later today.

Zhongji Innolight Prices HK IPO to Raise US$6.8 billion

China's Zhongji Innolight, the world's largest producer of optical transceivers used in AI data centers, priced its IPO in Hong Kong at HK$980 a share to raise HK$53.4 billion (US$6.8 billion), the largest initial public offering in the city in seven years and the second-largest in Asia this year. The price is below the HK$1,010 maximum price set by Innolight last week. Thirty cornerstone investors include BlackRock, Temasek Holdings and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Innolight, based in Shandong Province, is already listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Trading in Hong Kong is set to begin on Thursday. That follows the successful listing debut on Monday by Chinese chip giant CXMT, which raised at least US$8.6 billion in its IPO on the Shanghai STAR market.

Moonshot Makes Public Technical Details on the Kimi K3 Model

China's Moonshot AI released the complete model weights for its new Kimi K3 AI model, which jolted the global tech world when it was recently released. The information validated the claim that Kimi K3 is the world's first open-source model in the 3-trillion-parameter class. The report includes a detailed technical report and three core training infrastructure technologies: MoonEP, FlashKDA, and AgentEnv. The Kimi K3 allows developers anywhere to download, modify and deploy it locally. Its testing environment covered Nvidia H200 chips and general-purpose computing on graphics processing units from other vendors, indicating that its deployment capabilities are not limited to the Nvidia ecosystem, Yicai reported. The Kimi K3 improves overall scaling efficiency by about 2.5 times over the Kimi K2 model.

Moonshot indicated that some users may have to get licenses to use Kimi K3. Goldman Sachs is predicting that Chinese AI developers may begin charging commercial licensing fees to cloud platforms for hosting their open-weight models, as companies seek to capture more revenue from surging global usage, the South China Morning Post reported, citing Ronald Keung, Asian Internet research head. Chinese developers typically release their models under open-source terms, with foreign platforms and developers free to download, modify and host the core "weights" of the software, the underlying parameters that encode its intelligence. Keung said Chinese model makers could generate more revenue by requiring third-party vendors to purchase commercial licenses to provide inference services for these models on their own infrastructure.

Rogue AI Agent Compromises Second US Tech Company

The rogue agent that escaped from OpenAI and went on a multi-day hacking spree at AI firm Hugging Face also compromised a customer of New York-based Modal Labs, Reuters reported, citing a Modal executive and two other sources familiar with the matter. Modal executives emphasized that the company itself had not been hacked. News of the hack on Hugging Face, which the company had to halt via help from a Chinese AI open model, jolted the industry last week, invoking science fiction-like scenarios of AI running amok.

Economy & Markets

Rout in Tech Shares Sends Most Asian Markets Lower

The global rout in technology shares sent Asian markets lower on Tuesday as investors continue to weigh the vast sums being spent on AI spending, often debt-financed, against earnings prospects. The semiconductor-heavy Kospi index in South Korea plunged 11 percent. SK Hynix dived 15 percent after its New York shares fell below the offer price of its recent mega IPO there. Analysts said China's rising competitiveness in frontier AI technologies is paring value off shares of many global rivals.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite index closed 1.2 percent lower, with its tech-focused STAR Market losing 5.9 percent. DRAM chipmaker CXMT, which surged 465 percent in its STAR debut a day earlier after its US$8.6 billion IPO, slipped 4.1 percent to 47 yuan (US$6.90), still far above its offer price of 8.66 yuan. In Shenzhen, the ChiNext tech board fell 7.4 percent. "The recent selloff in semiconductor stocks appears to be driven more by a sharp deterioration in market sentiment than by any immediate change in fundamentals," Jung In Yun, chief executive officer at Fibonacci Asset Management Global, told Bloomberg News. Japan's Nikkei 225 lost 4 percent. Bucking the trend, the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong closed up 0.4 percent, with its tech index gaining 0.6 percent.

ASML Shares Drop on Reports of Emerging Chinese Rival

Shares in European chip-tool giant ASML shares dropped 10 percent the past two days in New York following widespread reports that China has developed rival advanced lithography chip printing, a sector dominated by the Dutch company. Reuters reported on Tuesday that a state-owned company is involved in developing so-called immersion deep ultraviolet lithography tools, keys to modern chipmaking. The news lifted Chinese shares in Zhangjiang High-Tech, Yongxin Optics, Highly Group and Wavelength Opto-Electronic, while some analysts remain suspicious of the actual progress.

Pre-IPO, Shein Under Probe by US Regulators

Chinese discount online retailer Shein said its US business is under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. It made the disclosure in a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange, where it is seeking to go public. Shein, founded in China but now headquartered in Singapore, said it is cooperating with federal authorities. The company has undergone several investigations by EU countries over its business practices and online content, resulting in fines. Financial details and a timeline for Shein's Hong Kong IPO haven't been released yet.

South Korean Regulator Mulls Cap on Leveraged Fund Buying

South Korea's financial regulator said on Tuesday that authorities are considering a cap on single-stock leveraged exchange-traded fund investments by retail investors, local media reported. Lee Eog-weon, chairman of the Financial Services Commission, told a meeting with local brokerages and asset managers in Seoul that the regulator is reviewing and drafting measures to curb demand for the exchange-traded products. The cash deposit for retail investors to invest in the funds was raised last week, aimed primarily at South Korea's two biggest stocks: chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. Recent stock market selloffs have put pressure on individual investors using borrowed shares to invest, forcing them to liquidate holdings when stock prices tumble.

US Customs Inspects China-Linked Factories in Vietnam

US customs officials have carried out spot inspections on China-linked factories in Vietnam to evaluate how much value is added before goods are exported to the US, Bloomberg News reported. Inspectors also looked at possible violations of software intellectual property rights. No significant evidence has emerged to support Washington allegations that China is using Vietnam as a route to US exports to bypass higher tariffs, the report said.

China Denies 'Excess Capacity' Issue

China's commerce ministry said that there is no "inherent connection" between industrial subsidies and excess capacity and that large export volumes and trade surpluses don't equate to excess capacity. The statement in a document released on Tuesday was aimed at trading partners who have alleged that China's subsidies and excess industrial capacity give it an unfair competitive edge.

Corporate

Laopu Gold First-Half Earnings Estimates Miss Expectations

Beijing-based Laopu Gold, whose success has been based on selling premium jewelry inspired by Chinese cultural heritage, said profit for the first half is expected to increase as much as 85 percent to 4.4 billion yuan (US$650 million) on a two-thirds increase in revenue to 20.5 billion yuan. The slowdown from more explosive growth last year reflects a 24 percent drop in gold prices in the first half. Goldman Sachs and Citi said the earnings figure were worse than they expected and then cut their estimates. Shares of Laopu Gold, traded in Hong Kong, slumped nearly 24 percent on Tuesday amid a general retreat in shares of gold-related companies.

Mercedes, Porsche Cut Costs as Sales in China Falter

German premium carmakers Mercedes-Benz and Porsche are cutting costs further as competition from Chinese competitors bites sales on the Chinese mainland. Though Mercedes reported a 22 percent gain in second-quarter operating profit on cost-cutting, the company said its core business is struggling amid weak sales in China and lowered its revenue forecast for this year. Porsche, owned by Volkswagen, said it will cut one in five jobs by 2035 as its once lucrative market in China collapses and its electric-car strategy stalls. Daniel Schwarz, automotive analyst at investment bank Metzler, told Reuters that layoffs are inevitable "because a return to strong growth in China is not expected." Chinese domestic rivals like BYD and Geely are taking the competition to the doorstep of the German car industry with escalating investment in factories and sales networks in the EU.

Cabio Placed Under Market Warning Over Infant-Formula

Cabio Biotech, a major Chinese supplier of a fatty acid ingredient used in infant formula, was placed under a risk warning by the Shanghai Stock Exchange after the company said production was disrupted by European regulatory concerns about the safety of the oil. That followed an announcement by Swiss food giant Nestlé earlier this year that the oil supplied by one of its major suppliers posed potential quality risks, prompting a precautionary recall of certain batches of infant formula across 31 countries. The EU subsequently introduced import controls on the oil produced in China. Cabio, the world's second-largest supplier of the ingredient, forecasts an 82 percent plunge in first-half revenue, turning the company to loss of 100.6 million yuan (US$15 million) from profit of 108 million yuan a year earlier.

Samsung May Buy China Chips for Chinese Mainland Phones

Samsung Electronics' Mobile eXperience division is contemplating using China-made DRAM memory chips in mid-to-low end smartphones sold in the China market, hoping to counter mounting costs of chips. The report by local media in South Korean didn't specify which Chinese company may be tapped to supply so-called LPDDR5X chips.