8:00 36Kr Briefing | Pientzehuang's market value has evaporated by over 210 billion yuan; Apple announces leadership reshuffle, with John Ternus succeeding Tim Cook as Apple's CEO; Anthropic signs a NVIDIA-backed $35 billion cloud computing agreement

Today's Hotspot Guide

Is it difficult to switch from AI customer service to human agent? The new national standard has been released

Sources say ByteDance has raised the share price of Doubao to 17.02 US dollars

For every 100 US dollars earned by AI companies, nearly 40 US dollars flow to cloud giants Amazon, Microsoft and Google

Xiaohongshu is conducting internal test for the new "Post Daily Moment" feature, which supports the "visible for only 3 days" setting

China has successfully built two-way high-speed laser communication between the Earth and the Moon, and it only takes 12 seconds for photos transmitted back from the Moon

TOP3 Major News

Pianzihuang's market value has evaporated by over 210 billion yuan 

Pianzihuang (600436.SH), the time-honored leading traditional Chinese medicine enterprise known as the "Moutai of the pharmaceutical industry", has been facing sustained performance pressure. At the market opening on August 31, the share price of Pianzihuang declined. By the close of trading, Pianzihuang was quoted at 122.13 yuan, down 4.06%, with a total market value of about 73.7 billion yuan. In contrast, its market value at the peak period exceeded 290 billion yuan. According to the semi-annual report disclosed by Pianzihuang on August 28, the company achieved an operating revenue of 45.73 billion yuan in the first half of the year, a year-on-year decrease of 14.98%; the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 10.93 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 24.22%. It is understood that the main businesses of Pianzihuang are divided into the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry, pharmaceutical distribution industry, cosmetics industry and other sectors. In the pharmaceutical manufacturing segment, the company takes "Pianzihuang" as its core product, which has two dosage forms of troche and capsule, with identical ingredients and functional indications. Originating from the end of the Ming Dynasty, Pianzihuang has an inheritance history of nearly 500 years, is a national protected traditional Chinese medicine variety, and its prescription and process are protected by state secrets. (Jiemian News)

Apple Officially Sees Leadership Transition on September 1, John Ternus Takes Over as CEO

Apple will complete the CEO handover on September 1 local time: current Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering John Ternus will succeed Tim Cook, who will transition to the position of Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors, and continue to be responsible for affairs including communication with global policymakers. Ternus' top priorities after taking office include presiding over Apple's fall new product launch event to be held on September 9. This year's new products include the first foldable-screen iPhone, and smart displays that can identify speakers and adjust content according to users. At the same time, he is also responsible for overseeing more long-term product lines, including AirPods with cameras, smart glasses, home security systems, robotic arm displays and wearable cameras. These devices are crucial for Apple to sustain its decades-long success in the era of artificial intelligence. (CLS)

Nvidia is involved in every segment, as Anthropic signs a $35 billion cloud agreement with Lambda

JIN 10 Data reported on September 1, citing people familiar with the matter as disclosed by The Wall Street Journal, that Anthropic has signed a $35 billion cloud computing agreement with Lambda, a cloud computing provider backed by Nvidia, and Nvidia itself holds the lease of the relevant data center. Insiders stated that Nvidia signed an agreement with Hut 8 several weeks ago to secure the computing power capacity of this data center. This complex arrangement once again highlights Nvidia's increasingly important role in helping non-investment-grade enterprises such as Anthropic access its expensive computing resources. The deal also helps emerging cloud provider Lambda secure a lucrative contract with Anthropic without having to purchase data center space on its own. Lambda will use the data center being developed by Hut 8, and access chips purchased from Nvidia, who is also an investor of Lambda. It is still unclear how much Lambda needs to pay Nvidia to obtain the right to use the data center space. Anthropic encountered a computing power supply bottleneck earlier this year, and has since been racing to sign cloud capacity agreements. (JIN 10 Data APP)

The Cutting Edge of AI

OpenAI and other laboratories have purchased tens of thousands of Mac units for AI agent training

It is reported that a number of artificial intelligence labs including OpenAI have bought tens of thousands of Mac mini and Mac Studio devices for AI reinforcement learning. OpenAI is using these Macs to train AI agents and is in urgent need of more such equipment. According to people familiar with the matter, Anthropic also leases Mac mini from Amazon AWS, and some startups are even building Mac-only cloud services to cope with the upcoming surge in demand for Apple hardware. (CLS)

Massive Account Hijacking Incident Hits Claude, A Large Number of Users Are Forced to Log Out of Their Accounts

According to news on August 31, Anthropic suddenly encountered a large-scale account security incident, where a large number of Claude users were forcibly logged out. In the past two days, numerous Claude users found that their accounts were suddenly forced offline without any prior account suspension warning. Even the payment methods such as Visa and Mastercard bound in the backend have been urgently cleared by the official team. The official reminder states that if your usage quota is restored for no reason and then exhausted rapidly, it is a sign that your account has been compromised. Most affected users were infected with Trojan malware after downloading cracked software. Some users successfully used Claude Opus 5 to perform reverse detection and remove the virus, but experts still recommend reinstalling the operating system. Cybercriminal groups have shifted their business focus to "stealing computing power". Everyone must stay highly alert to unknown files and revoke active sessions in time. (AI Era)

Qianwen Creation Launches Agent Teams, Covering Professional Video Production Scenarios

36Kr learned that on August 31, Qianwen Creation rolled out the Agent Teams feature integrated with Wan 3.0, which is now open to all users. This function introduces the multi-agent collaboration mechanism into the full workflow of professional video creation. Users only need to put forward their creative ideas, and can summon expert Agents with different divisions of responsibilities to collaboratively complete video production. At present, Agent Teams has been launched on the Qianwen Creation PC terminal and the Qianwen App, enabling users to create content anytime and anywhere across different devices.

Tencent Hunyuan: Call volume of Hy4 preview surges, WorkBuddy has undergone emergency capacity expansion

36Kr learned that Tencent Hunyuan stated that since the exclusive launch of Hunyuan Hy4 preview on WorkBuddy on August 28, 2026, thanks to its significantly enhanced Agent capabilities, it has received active trials and enthusiastic feedback from the majority of users and developers. Queuing occurred in the WorkBuddy task queue on the first day of launch, for which we express our deep apologies. To guarantee everyone's experience, the company has completed emergency capacity expansion for the Hy4 preview inference cluster, and will continue to dynamically allocate resources. However, restricted by the total amount of high-end computing power and concentrated peak concurrency, queuing may still occur during some individual periods.

Major Companies / Major Events

Is it difficult to get transferred to a human agent from AI customer service? The "New National Standard" is here

Starting from September 1, China's first national standard focusing on the collaboration mechanism between human customer service and intelligent customer service, Requirements for Collaboration Between Human and Intelligent Customer Service in Customer Contact Services, will be officially implemented. In response to problems such as the "transfer to human agent" entrance being hidden layer by layer and poor user experience, the standard stipulates that the switch between intelligent customer service and human customer service "shall provide a convenient entrance and ensure smooth connection", and after switching, "customer information shall be synchronized and no repeated inquiries shall be made". The standard clarifies the "false promise" issue of AI customer service: general Q&A and product introduction can be automatically replied by AI, but obvious AI-generated labels and risk warnings shall be retained. Once involving matters such as price, discount, refund, compensation and contract modification, AI can explain rules, collect materials and generate work orders, and the final confirmation shall be completed by human customer service or standardized processes. (Overseas Edition of People's Daily)

Han Yuchen, Vice President of Public Relations of iFLYTEK, has been removed from his post after being reported internally

A personnel adjustment notice confirmed by insiders of iFLYTEK shows that on August 31, 2026, iFLYTEK removed Han Yuchen from the post of Deputy General Manager of the Brand Marketing Center of iFLYTEK; relevant responsibilities will be concurrently assumed by Wu Junhua, General Manager of the Brand Marketing Center. It is reported that this notice, signed by the "Organization Development and Human Resources Department" of iFLYTEK, has the document number of Xun Zu Ren [2026] No. 173, and the issuance date is August 31, 2026. The above notice shows that after the company's research and decision, personnel adjustments have been made to the Brand Marketing Center, removing Han Yuchen from the post of Deputy General Manager of the Brand Marketing Center; relevant responsibilities will be concurrently assumed by Wu Junhua, General Manager of the Brand Marketing Center.

According to media reports, Han Yuchen was previously the Vice President of Public Relations of iFLYTEK Group. He joined the company at the end of 2018 and was responsible for establishing the group's public relations department, with more than ten years of working experience in the fields of public communication and crisis public relations. He once held positions of market public relations staff and public relations director in enterprises including Alibaba and 360. The removal of Han Yuchen this time may be related to the previous internal report within iFLYTEK. The previously circulated report documents online show that a person who is the spouse of a female iFLYTEK employee named "Zhu Qian" submitted a real-name report. (NetEase Finance)

Junlebao Responds to the Excessive Bacteria Count Detected in Pure Milk Samples in Hong Kong 

On August 26, the Centre for Food Safety of Hong Kong notified the test results of a batch of Junlebao normal temperature pure milk, and found that the bacterial count of the sample exceeded the standard stipulated in Hong Kong's Dairy Regulation. A spokesperson for the Centre for Food Safety of Hong Kong also pointed out that the bacterial count exceeding the legal standard indicates that the hygiene condition of the product is not ideal, but does not mean that it will cause food poisoning. At present, all products of this batch have been sealed in the warehouse of the Hong Kong importer, have not entered the market, and have not caused any impact on consumers. On August 31, Junlebao Dairy Group Co., Ltd. released a statement on the spot check of a batch of 1-liter carton-packed UHT normal temperature pure milk conducted by the Centre for Food Safety under the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department of Hong Kong. The statement shows that the abnormal indicator is caused by improper operation during the loading, unloading and handling process in the Hong Kong warehouse which led to damage of some products. (Jiemian News)

Unitree Technology's share price nearly halved 

As of the close of trading on August 31, Unitree Technology, which has received extensive public attention recently, closed at 564.90 yuan per share, with a decline of 3.44%. Compared with the opening price of 1100 yuan per share on the first day of listing, its share price has nearly been cut in half. (Yicai)

Sliced salmon detected with coliform group count over 4 times the allowed limit, Walmart issues an apology

Recently, the notice on unqualified food sampling inspection results released by the State Administration for Market Regulation shows that one batch of sliced salmon from "Marketside", the private brand under Walmart, was found with excessive coliform group count. Walmart responded: "We sincerely apologize for the abnormal test result of a single batch of salmon products in Guangzhou during the sampling inspection in May. After receiving the sampling inspection result, we coordinated with our supplier, actively cooperated with the investigation and guidance of the regulatory authorities, and carried out a comprehensive verification. After verification, no abnormality was found in the production equipment, processing environment and process links of the product, and the result of the re-sampling inspection in cooperation with the regulatory authorities in July was qualified. All salmon products currently on sale meet the national food safety standards." (Eastday)

Former employee of Xingyu exposes differences at overseas plant, Chinese staff work 10 hours per day on average

According to Phoenix Tech reports, a recent investigation into the working status of employees at Xingyu Co., Ltd. found that there are obvious differences in work arrangements for Chinese and foreign employees at the company's overseas plant in Serbia. Lin Zhe, a former employee, told Phoenix Tech that local Serbian employees usually follow local labor regulations to implement a 9-to-5 work system and leave work on time, while Chinese support staff dispatched from China have an average daily working time of about 10 hours. This means that within the same overseas plant, there are great differences in actual working hours and overtime arrangements between Chinese support personnel and local employees. (Phoenix Tech)

Tesla launches affordable Model 3, with a starting price of HK$205,000 in Hong Kong, China 

Recently, Tesla has officially launched the Model 3 variant with simplified configuration and lower price in the markets of Hong Kong, China and Macao, China. According to Tesla's official website, the starting price of this model in Hong Kong, China is HK$205,000 (about 175,900 RMB), and the starting price in Macao, China is MOP 252,000 (about 209,800 RMB). (Jiemian News)

For every $100 earned by AI companies, nearly $40 flows to cloud giants Amazon, Microsoft and Google

On August 30, according to reports from multiple foreign media outlets, Barclays Bank of the United Kingdom recently pointed out in a research report on the AI industry that for every $100 of revenue generated by AI model companies, roughly $35 to $40 flows to the three major cloud giants in the form of inference computing power fees, namely Amazon Web Services, Microsoft's Azure cloud service platform and Google Cloud Platform. Cloud service providers can obtain operating profits of about $10 to $20 from this, corresponding to an operating profit margin as high as 35% to 45%. Meanwhile, the profit margin of paid inference services for AI labs has risen sharply, from the low double-digit level in 2025 to 50% to 65% or even higher in 2026, with the adjusted gross profit margin increasing by 30 to 50 percentage points year on year. Analysts at Barclays believe that the actual profit margin may be higher than the estimate in the report, but as competition for cutting-edge models intensifies and the supply of computing power continues to increase, the profit margin is expected to gradually decline. (CCTV Financial)

Xiaomi 18Fold Becomes Xiaomi's First Smartphone With a Starting Price Exceeding 10,000 Yuan

36Kr has exclusively learned that Xiaomi has made it clear to top distributors across all channels that all variants of the Xiaomi 18Fold will be priced above 10,000 yuan, with the base variant priced at around 12,000 yuan. As the first product adopting Xiaomi's new foldable form factor, Xiaomi 18Fold is positioned as the top-tier model in Xiaomi's mobile phone product line, which will integrate all core hardcore technologies of Xiaomi Group including the Xiaomi Smart Ring O3, as well as external peripheral configurations such as LPDDR6. Benefiting from the release of chips for the Xiaomi Smart Ring series, the current pre-order volume with deposit for Xiaomi 18Fold has far exceeded expectations, far outperforming the early pre-order volumes of all previous generations of Xiaomi foldable smartphones.

Insiders Respond to Dreame's Lawsuit Against Xiaohongshu: The Case Has Long Been Withdrawn

On August 31, in response to media reports that the lawsuit filed by Dreame Technology against Xiaohongshu is about to open for trial, insiders stated that the case was withdrawn long ago and no court session will be held. According to the court's hearing information, due to a reputation rights dispute, Dreame Technology (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. filed a lawsuit against Xingyin Information Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (the core domestic operating entity of Xiaohongshu), and the case will be heard at the People's Court of Huangpu District, Shanghai on September 8. According to legal sources close to Xiaohongshu, the litigation originated from Dreame's request for the platform to cooperate in disclosing the real identity information of a "self-media" user. Dreame believes that the user is suspected of infringement, and suing the platform is a common legal procedure of "disclosing identity" in network infringement disputes. It is understood that the account published a post about Dreame's organizational structure adjustment last November. (The Paper)

Report: ByteDance Raises the Price of Doubao Shares to $17.02

It is reported that ByteDance recently held an information session on Doubao shares, and rolled out new policies for employees eligible for Doubao shares, including raising the price of Doubao shares from $14.85 per share in June to $17.02 per share, with an increase of around 14.6%. The source also noted that ByteDance has increased the issuance of Doubao shares, which varies from person to person, and some employees can get Doubao shares accounting for about 5% of their total compensation package. Employees can choose to adjust the proportion of Doubao shares by converting the cash part in their total compensation into Doubao shares. The full-allocation proportion varies for each individual affected by factors such as job level, with optional tiers including 20%, 30%, etc. In terms of the conversion of Doubao shares, the quota varies from person to person. For instance, some L2 and L3 employees have an optional maximum Doubao share proportion of 20%, while some L3 and L4 employees have a maximum proportion of 25% or 30%. (Sina Tech)

Eli Lilly to Acquire Merida Biosciences for up to $2.875 Billion in Cash

On August 31, Eli Lilly and Company announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Merida Biosciences, a U.S. biotechnology company, with a total transaction value of up to $2.875 billion in cash, including upfront payments and potential milestone payments. The transaction is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2026. (Jiemian News)

Xiaohongshu is running internal test for the "Post Daily" feature: the "3-day visibility" setting is available

Xiaohongshu is conducting internal testing of its "Post Daily" feature, which can realize the "visible for only 3 days" function the same as WeChat Moments. The posts of this feature can be displayed independently on the user's personal homepage separately from other Xiaohongshu notes, and can be converted into formal notes at any time. (Sina Tech)

China successfully established two-way high-speed laser communication between Earth and the Moon, and it only takes 12 seconds for photos to be transmitted back from the Moon 

In the past, transmitting an 8K high-definition image of the lunar surface from a satellite in lunar orbit back to the ground required the use of microwave links, which took about 4 to 5 minutes, while it only takes about 12 seconds with laser communication. Recently, China has made important breakthroughs in the Earth-Moon laser communication test mission, successfully building a two-way laser link at an Earth-Moon distance of more than 400,000 kilometers, and realizing two-way high-speed laser communication between Earth and the Moon for the first time. This marks that China's space laser communication has officially entered the cislunar space from near-Earth orbit, and will provide important technical support for China's manned lunar landing, lunar research station construction and deep space exploration. (China Youth Network)

The three major U.S. stock indexes closed lower collectively, with most popular Chinese concept stocks posting broad declines

36Kr learned that at the close of trading on August 31, the three major U.S. stock indexes fell collectively: the Nasdaq dropped 0.12%, the S&P 500 fell 0.33%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 0.7%. Most large-cap technology stocks closed lower, with Amazon and Google falling more than 2%, Microsoft dropping over 1%, and Meta and Apple posting slight declines. Tesla rose more than 5% and Nvidia climbed over 1%. Most popular Chinese concept stocks saw broad declines: Alibaba fell more than 4%, NIO dropped over 3%, Bilibili and Weibo fell more than 2%, while Pinduoduo, Baidu, JD, XPeng Inc. and Li Auto all slid more than 1%.

SK Hynix is considering outsourcing the production of some of its base HBM dies to Intel

SK Hynix is considering having part of its HBM base dies manufactured by Intel, in a bid to reduce its reliance on TSMC's wafer foundry services. The plan is expected to kick off with HBM4E, the 7th generation HBM chip. Analysts point out that for HBM4, the price of base dies from TSMC is 3 to 4 times higher than that of core chips produced by SK Hynix using its 10nm-class 5th generation process. It is expected that the cost burden will further increase during the transition to HBM4E. Given the high proportion of long-term supply contracts (LTA) for HBM, it is difficult for the company to immediately pass on the increased foundry costs to product prices. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a multi-supplier system to improve bargaining power in price negotiations. (CLS)

IPO In Progress

The IPO offering price of Enflame Technology on the STAR Market is set at 142.18 yuan per share

36Kr learned that Enflame Technology has disclosed that for the company's initial public offering of shares and listing on the STAR Market, the offering price is 142.18 yuan per share, with 43.035173 million shares to be issued. The total estimated raised capital reaches 6.119 billion yuan, and the online and offline subscription date is September 2, 2026.

Chint Electric submits listing application to Hong Kong Stock Exchange, embarking on a new journey of internationalization

On August 28, Chint Electric officially submitted its listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, planning to realize "A+H" listing, build a dual capital platform and start a new journey of internationalization. It is understood that Chint Electric achieved an operating revenue of 38.064 billion yuan in the first half of 2026, representing a year-on-year increase of 28.46%. This listing in Hong Kong aims to meet the needs of business development, further promote the internationalization strategy, actively expand diversified financing channels with the help of the international capital market, and further enhance the comprehensive competitiveness of the company. This move will provide strong support for the company's global market expansion and international brand influence improvement.

Investment and Financing

"Stellar Power" Completes Pre-A Round Financing, Led Exclusively by CDB Venture Capital

36Kr has learned that Stellar Power has announced the completion of its Pre-A round of financing. This round is exclusively led by CDB Venture Capital, the equity investment platform under China Development Bank, with participating investors including Shanghai Future Industry Fund, Newding Capital, Changshi Capital, BV Baidu Ventures, Yunbai Capital, Mingyu Venture Capital and Yuanshi Fund. Existing shareholders such as Cathay Capital and Heavy Snow Capital continue to make additional investments. The proceeds of this round of financing will be mainly used to expand the aerospace engineering team, innovate space photovoltaic engineering, and deploy the upstream and downstream sectors of the space power industry.

"Xianbo Biotech" completes nearly RMB 400 million Series B financing

36Kr has learned that Xianbo Biotech has announced the completion of its Series B financing of nearly 400 million yuan. This round of financing is co-led by Foton Capital, CGP Capital and Pudong Venture Capital, with follow-on investments from Zhangke Herun, Yuanhe Holdings, and additional investment from existing shareholder U-shan Capital. The raised funds will be mainly used to accelerate the confirmatory clinical research of SNC103, the core pipeline of universal CAR-NK, and promote the registered clinical development of SNC116, the in vivo CAR-T platform.

Nvidia invests in MediaTek

Under the terms of this transaction agreement, Nvidia and MediaTek will cooperate to jointly develop the next-generation Nvidia Spark series chips for consumer-grade personal computers. Nvidia stated that it has invested 3.5 billion US dollars to subscribe to convertible bonds issued by MediaTek, a chip manufacturer based in Chinese Taiwan, which is the latest signal of deepened cooperation between the two enterprises. MediaTek will officially manufacture the chiplets, switch chips and custom memory of Nvidia's NVLinkFusion chip. This set of hardware can interconnect non-Nvidia GPUs, CPUs and other dedicated chips. (Sina Finance)

Major Corporate Earnings Reports

Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd. posted a revenue of 467.8 billion yuan in the first half of the year, with a net profit of 23.427 billion yuan

36Kr has learned that Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd. disclosed its 2026 semi-annual report. The report shows that the company's revenue in the first half of the year reached 467.8 billion yuan, compared with 427 billion yuan in the same period of last year; the net profit was 23.427 billion yuan, while the figure in the same period of last year was 37.05 billion yuan.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing: Net profit for the first half of the fiscal year hits HK$10.568 billion, up 24% year on year

36Kr learned from the announcement of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing that its revenue in the first half of 2026 reached HK$16.702 billion, with a year-on-year increase of 19%; its net profit attributable to shareholders was HK$10.568 billion, up 24% year on year.

Zhipu: Revenue in the first half of the year reached 954 million yuan, up 399.7% year on year

36 Kr learned that Zhipu released its 2026 semi-annual report. In the first half of 2026, the company achieved revenue of 954 million yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 399.7%; the adjusted net loss during the period was 1.964 billion yuan. In the first half of the year, the revenue of Zhipu's open platform and API business was about 825 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2735.7%.

Momenta: H1 Revenue Hits RMB 1.6 Billion, Up 76% Year-on-Year

36kr has learned that Momenta released its 2026 first-half financial report. The financial report shows that the company recorded a revenue of RMB 1.6 billion in the first half of the year, with a 76% year-on-year growth. After excluding share-based compensation expenses, the gross profit reached RMB 1.21 billion, up 75% year-on-year, with a gross margin of 75%. Currently, the number of mass-produced vehicles equipped with Momenta's system has exceeded 1.1 million units, more than 110 mass-produced models have been successfully delivered, and the cumulative number of designated models has surpassed 230.

Kr Major Events

Kr Major Events Short Video Column, offers vivid interpretations of major events in the business world. What do South Koreans think of the 3,000-yuan-per-shot corpse-derived skin anti-aging injection?

Compiled | Li Qi