Krypton Evening News | Gaode's first embodied robot to make an appearance; Nissan unveils transformation plan: cut 20% of models and aim for one million sales in China and the US; As strategy shifts, OpenAI's $852 billion valuation questioned by investors
Large Companies:
The world's largest snack store, "Snack Kingdom", will open on April 17
36Kr learned that the world's largest immersive snack experience space, "Snack Kingdom", created by Mingming Busy Group, will officially open at Furong Square in Changsha, Hunan on April 17. The project has a retail and experience space of over 12,000 square meters, bringing together flavors from about 70 countries and regions around the world, more than 6,500 domestic and international brands, and 35,000 product items.
In response to the rumor that TCL Electronics plans to sell shares in its TV manufacturing department in India, a representative of TCL Electronics responded today, saying, "The company does not own the assets mentioned in the previous reports." According to previous reports, TCL Electronics Holdings Limited is considering selling part of its shares in the local TV manufacturing department to Indian buyers to boost business growth.
Apple's new affordable computer, MacBook Neo, has achieved early success in the consumer market. It is reported that the first batch of products has already sold out, leading Apple to urgently place large additional orders with suppliers Foxconn and Quanta. The MacBook Neo has been on sale globally since March 11. There are reports that the delivery cycle for this laptop, which is priced at $599 (starting at 4,599 yuan in China), has been extended to May. Apple has also raised its sales forecast for the MacBook Neo from 7 million units to 10 million units. Meanwhile, the inventory of the A18 Pro chip used in the MacBook Neo has become a key constraint on the production capacity of this laptop.
As OpenAI shifts its strategy, its $852 billion valuation is being questioned by investors
It is reported that as OpenAI shifts its strategic focus to the enterprise market and prepares to deal with the competition from Anthropic, its sky - high valuation of $852 billion is being scrutinized by its own investors. Some OpenAI investors revealed that although the company is preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) as early as this year, the above - mentioned strategic adjustment may put it in a relatively vulnerable position when facing Anthropic and the resurgent Google.
On April 14, Nissan Motor released a transformation strategy, planning to reduce the number of global models from 56 to 45 (a reduction of about 20%), and aims to concentrate 80% of its sales on three core model families. Nissan strives to achieve annual sales of over one million vehicles in the US and Chinese markets respectively by the fiscal year 2030. To this end, the company will launch more competitive new products.
In response to the online rumor about a factory fire, BYD responded, "Early this morning, a fire broke out in a multi - storey car park in our Pingshan campus. This car park is a dedicated parking area for test and scrapped vehicles. Currently, the fire has been extinguished, and there are no casualties." Previously, the Pingshan District Fire and Rescue Bureau issued a statement saying that at 2:48 am on April 14, 2026, a fire broke out in a multi - storey car park in Maluanshan Street, Pingshan District. Emergency and fire departments at the municipal and district levels rushed to the scene for disposal immediately. The fire has been extinguished, and there are no casualties.
New Products:
AutoNavi's first embodied robot will make its debut
AutoNavi revealed that its first embodied robot product will make its public debut at the 2026 Yizhuang Robot Half - Marathon. This product, from AutoNavi's Embodied Business Department, is a quadruped robot and is the first embodied robot product launched by Alibaba Group. This robot will complete a series of task challenges through autonomous perception, decision - making, and interaction in the open environment at the competition site.
Youdao Dictionary Pen A7S is officially launched
36Kr learned that today, NetEase Youdao officially launched the Youdao Dictionary Pen A7S, with a first - launch price of 349 yuan. The Youdao Dictionary Pen A7S integrates model clusters such as Doubao, Qianwen, DeepSeek, and Ziyue, allowing users to freely switch according to reasoning or language scenarios.
36Kr learned that recently, the industry's first PPAP document review intelligent agent jointly developed by Lenovo to assist Li Auto was officially launched. Based on Lenovo's ThinkStation PGX AI workstation, this intelligent agent has achieved a qualitative leap in the efficiency of PPAP document review. The ThinkStation PGX, built on the NVIDIA GB10 Grace Blackwell super - chip, has a computing power of 1 PetaFLOP (1 quadrillion floating - point operations per second) and 128GB of unified memory. It can run Li Auto's self - developed 27B large model locally in real - time and support parallel reasoning of multiple intelligent agents.
Investment and Financing:
CREAO AI completes tens of millions of US dollars in financing
36Kr learned that according to Prosperity7, CREAO AI has completed tens of millions of US dollars in financing. The leading investors are Prosperity7 Ventures, a diversified venture capital fund under Aramco Ventures, and Matrix Partners China. Existing investors, including Yunqi Partners, Lisi Capital, Hillhouse Capital, Sequoia China, and Huaye Tiancheng Capital, have continued to increase their investment. In less than a year, CREAO AI has accumulated over $30 million in financing.
Today's Views:
Report: European consumers' annual spending on AliExpress is growing at a rate of 25%
36Kr learned that Nielsen's "2026 White Paper on the Platform Migration of Overseas - bound Brands" points out that the focus of brand expansion overseas is shifting from Amazon to Chinese platforms led by AliExpress. Data shows that European consumers' annual spending on AliExpress is growing at a rate of 25%. On the brand side, Amazon's GMV has declined by 4%, while AliExpress leads the "Four Rising Stars of Overseas Expansion" with a 4% growth rate. 30% of European consumers regard AliExpress as the "most likely platform to challenge Amazon", ranking first in terms of recognition.
Other Notable News:
36Kr learned that the General Office of the State Council has issued the "Several Opinions on Improving the Drug Price Formation Mechanism". The opinions propose to optimize the initial pricing mechanism for newly launched drugs such as innovative drugs. A self - evaluation system for newly launched drug companies will be implemented to guide pharmaceutical companies to conduct self - evaluations. Pharmaceutical companies should independently and reasonably set prices by comprehensively considering factors such as clinical value, market supply and demand, competitive landscape, and social affordability, and accept social supervision and peer review. When setting prices for newly launched drugs, different policies and guidance will be provided for high - level innovative drugs, improved new drugs, and generic drugs (i.e., generic medications). For high - level innovative drugs with high innovation and great clinical value, support will be provided to set prices at the initial stage of launch that are in line with high investment and high risk, and keep the prices relatively stable for a certain period. For improved new drugs, companies will be encouraged to set prices that match the benefits to patients. For other newly launched drugs such as generic drugs, pharmaceutical companies will be guided to set prices reasonably by referring to the prices of drugs with the same generic name, the same mechanism of action, and the same indications. Based on the results of real - world research and the actual effectiveness of clinical use, pharmaceutical companies can appropriately adjust the price level on the basis of the initial drug price.
China's largest scientific and intelligent computing cluster is put into use
Today (April 14), China's largest scientific and intelligent computing cluster was put into use at the core node of the National Supercomputing Internet in Zhengzhou. This marks a key breakthrough in China's field of computing power infrastructure for artificial - intelligence - driven scientific research and will help China seize the high - ground in the application of the artificial intelligence industry.