8:1 Kr | ByteDance is reportedly granted nearly 30 billion US dollars in loans; OpenAI officially releases GPT-6 Astra; NVIDIA acquires Hugging Face for 12.93 billion US dollars.
Today's Hotspot Guide
- Meta cancels the mechanism linking employees' AI usage to performance assessment
- ChatGPT, Codex and Grok encounter sudden failures, multiple AI companies suffer service outages
- WeChat's Director of Public Affairs responds to the statement that "users with over 10,000 friends can check who has unilaterally deleted them from their contact list"
- The winning numbers of Enflame Technology's new share allotment are released, with a total of 20657 numbers
- The World Meteorological Organization confirms that El Niño has formed and may develop to an ultra-strong level
- The STAR Market IPO review status of YMTC Holdings has been changed to "Inquired"
TOP 3 Major News
Reports say ByteDance secures nearly 30 billion USD loan, the second largest USD loan in Asia this year
On September 3, according to people familiar with the matter, ByteDance, the developer of TikTok, has obtained a loan of 29.6 billion US dollars (about 37.6 billion Singapore dollars), making it the second largest US dollar-denominated loan in Asia in 2026. People familiar with the matter said that ByteDance initially planned to raise 20 billion US dollars, but due to strong commitments from a number of banks, the financing scale was finally expanded to 29.6 billion US dollars. The funds from the financing will be mainly used for general corporate purposes. It is understood that ByteDance is accelerating its investment in AI, and is considering raising its 2026 capital expenditure to a maximum of 70 billion US dollars, which is more than twice that of last year, mainly for the expansion of data centers and other AI infrastructure. ByteDance's last large-scale overseas loan took place in 2024, raising about 10.8 billion US dollars. As of press time, ByteDance has not yet given a response. (Yicai)
OpenAI Officially Releases GPT-6 Astra, Mankind Enters the Era of Large-scale AGI Labor Division
On local time September 3, OpenAI officially confirmed that this is "the world's most intelligent model that best aligns with human intentions". Astra brings together years of research outcomes in pre-training, reinforcement learning and model alignment, and has reached new capability levels in multiple domains including computer operation, web browsing, software engineering, cybersecurity, scientific research and professional work. Compared with previous generation models that are mainly designed for chatting, writing and question answering, Astra acts more like an AI Agent that can directly get work done: it can call tools, operate software, browse web pages and complete complex tasks independently. Greg Brockman, President of OpenAI, noted that when we look back a few years from now, today will be the starting point of the AGI era. (APPSO)
Nvidia acquires Hugging Face for 12.93 billion US dollars
On September 3, Nvidia announced that it has agreed to acquire Hugging Face for 12.93 billion US dollars. Nvidia pledged to maintain Hugging Face's operation as an open platform. The two parties will jointly expand the scale of the Hugging Face platform, strengthen its infrastructure, and provide broader artificial intelligence application opportunities for global developers and institutions. Developers can freely choose the required models, frameworks, cloud services, inference service providers and computing platforms. When building or deploying applications on Hugging Face, there is no need to use Nvidia's computing resources. (Jiemian News)
Cutting-edge AI
Meta Scraps the Mechanism Tying Employees' AI Usage to Performance, and the Hatch Test Drives the Rise of Token Consumption
On September 3, according to reports, Meta stated in an internal notice this week that employee performance evaluations will no longer be based on AI tool usage, including indicators such as Token consumption. Previously, Meta had pushed employees to enhance "AI-driven impact", and the degree of AI usage had become a concerned indicator in actual work. At the same time, Meta employees have started testing Hatch, the new intelligent agent AI tool. Employees noted that even though performance appraisals no longer emphasize AI usage, the use of agent tools such as Hatch is still driving up Token consumption. (Jiemian News)
Sam Altman made his first clear statement that OpenAI will independently develop humanoid robots
On September 2 local time, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed in a podcast program that the company will independently develop humanoid robot bodies, and develop special robots for data centers in parallel at the same time. The original World Simulation project has been upgraded to OpenAI Robotics. It will focus on developing robots to assist infrastructure workers in the short term, and its long-term goal is to make personal robots accessible to every individual. OpenAI's first screen-free portable AI terminal is expected to be launched in 2027, with a shape similar to a donut and a selling price that may exceed 300 US dollars. (Jiemian News)
Tencent Launches WorkBuddy Financial Edition
36Kr has learned from Tencent Security that Tencent has officially launched WorkBuddy Financial Edition, providing institutions including insurance, asset management and banking with a skill matrix covering core businesses such as investment research, compliance, customer operation, credit due diligence and wealth asset allocation, as well as financial data sources and a full-link secure and trusted underlying platform.
Meta: "Watermelon" Model R&D Progresses Smoothly
Meta's Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer Alexandr Wang stated that the newly released Muse Spark 1.3 will be priced at the same level as Muse Spark 1.2, while delivering higher efficiency with 25% less Tokens required for operation. Meta has not yet decided whether to make the weights of Muse Spark 1.3 public, but the company still plans to disclose the weights of Muse Spark 1.2. The company is still developing the larger-scale "Watermelon" model as scheduled, "We believe that the 'Watermelon' will be extremely competitive." (Sina Finance)
Major Companies / Major Events
After 34 years of listing, Konka Group voluntarily applies for delisting
On September 3, *ST Konka announced in a public statement that it plans to voluntarily withdraw the listing and trading of its A-shares and B-shares on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange through a shareholders' meeting resolution, and transfer its shares on the delisting sector of the National Equities Exchange and Quotations after the termination of listing. The announcement notes that the company's shares will be suspended from trading as of the market opening on September 4, and will be delisted within 5 trading days after the Shenzhen Stock Exchange releases the delisting decision. If the delisting proposal is not approved by the shareholders' meeting, the company will apply for the resumption of share trading as of the date when the shareholders' meeting resolution is announced. Public information shows that the full name of the listed company corresponding to *ST Konka A is Konka Group Co., Ltd., which was one of the leading domestic color TV manufacturers in the past, was listed in 1992 and has been listed for 34 years to date. (Yicai)
Tmall Launches Token Recharge Center, First Batch of Access Partners Include Alibaba Cloud, Zhipu, Kimi and MiniMax
36Kr learned that on September 3, Tmall officially launched the AI Space Station (Token Recharge Center). According to the page information, this recharge center gathers subscription services of domestic large model manufacturers including Alibaba Cloud, Zhipu, Kimi, MiniMax and others. The products on sale include periodically subscribed Token Plan, Coding Plan, as well as pay-as-you-go recharge solutions, supporting two delivery methods of card cipher recharge and direct top-up.
Multiple banks in Shanghai have clarified that people born before 1991 cannot newly apply for 40-year mortgage loans
According to Shanghai Observer, the new policy that allows mortgage loans to have a 40-year term has drawn widespread attention from all parties recently. At present, some banks in Shanghai have opened the extension application channel for existing mortgage loans. The reporter learned from the Shanghai Branch of Bank of Communications that existing mortgage loans can apply for extension now, the extension period shall not exceed half of the original loan term, and the sum of the original loan term and the extension period shall not exceed 40 years. In addition, many banks have set the threshold that "the age of the borrower plus the loan term" shall not exceed 75 years. This also means that under this standard, borrowers born before 1991 can no longer apply for 40-year personal housing mortgage loans when submitting new mortgage applications. (Cailian Press)
Sudden outages hit ChatGPT, Codex and Grok, multiple AI companies suffer service disruptions
On the night of September 3, according to user reports on Downdetector and the status pages of relevant companies, a number of AI companies are experiencing service interruptions.
OpenAI said that there are currently problems with its ChatGPT and Codex. Anthropic stated that it is investigating the errors that occurred with Claude and is working on fixes. SpaceX AI noted that Grok is currently malfunctioning and the service outage is under investigation. According to Downdetector, more than 12,000 user reports have pointed to existing problems with OpenAI, there are about 1,200 problem reports related to Claude, and around 1,000 problem reports related to Grok. (The Chinese Finance Association)
Korea Electric Power Corporation Plans to Collect Tens of Billions of US Dollars in Prepaid Electricity Fees from Samsung and SK Hynix
On September 3, according to reports, Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) is negotiating with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix on collecting large prepaid electricity fees to raise funds for the construction of the power grid of the new semiconductor industrial cluster. KEPCO stated that the specific amount of the advance payment and its coverage period have not been determined yet. This mechanism can help large power-consuming enterprises obtain power supply in a timely manner, while providing the company with alternative financing channels to reduce its dependence on the bond market. It is reported that KEPCO once proposed that Samsung prepay 20 trillion won (about 14.7 billion US dollars) and SK Hynix prepay 5 trillion won, which is calculated based on the 2025 electricity fees and the estimated power consumption costs from 2027 to 2031. (Jiemian News)
Alibaba has filed multiple complaints concerning .ai domain names
The reporter noticed that over the past few months, Alibaba has intensively filed complaints around a number of ".ai" domain names related to its multiple businesses. After sorting out the public information released by the Czech Arbitration Court (CAC), the reporter found that domain names including goofish.ai, taobao.ai, qwenchat.ai, alibaba.ai have all entered the dispute procedures, and were finally ruled to be transferred to relevant entities of Alibaba. In addition, Alibaba's domain name transfer application for 1688.ai has been rejected for the moment. Alibaba is not the first internet company that competes for ".ai" domain names. Over the past few years, Tencent, Google and other enterprises have taken similar actions. How to recover relevant domain names from the original holders through the domain name dispute resolution procedure has also become a problem that large tech companies have to face. Some domain name investors also regard the cybersquatting of some AI domain names as a potential business opportunity. (Yicai)
WeChat Director of Corporate Communications Responds to the Feature "Accounts with Over 10,000 Friends Can View Contacts Who Unilaterally Deleted Themselves"
On the afternoon of September 3, the WeChat Director of Corporate Communications released a post stating that many users are concerned about the function that "accounts with over 10,000 friends can view contacts who unilaterally deleted them". This function is not designed for the purpose of "checking who has deleted me", but only provides a relationship sorting outlet for those who are really too busy to add new friends as their friend list is full. The post mentioned that many users have asked why the company does not directly launch a one-click function for all users to check unilaterally deleted friends. We understand this design is a deliberate effort to "counter social anxiety", and we do not want to turn the prying anxiety of "wondering whether you have been deleted" into a Pandora's box that everyone can check at any time. It is not that we forbid users from knowing this, but that we do not want the act of knowing it to become a new burden. (Yicai)
Iran Strikes US Military Base in Kuwait, International Oil Prices Plunge, WTI Crude Drops Below $90
In the afternoon of September 3 Beijing time, international oil prices slumped rapidly. As of 15:39, Brent crude fell by nearly 1.5% to below $95 per barrel, while WTI crude lost the $90 per barrel mark with a decline of 1.32%. According to Xinhua News Agency citing Iranian media reports on the 3rd, Iran used missiles and drones to strike the US military base in Kuwait. Sources said thick plumes of smoke were rising from the site. A little earlier, the Kuwaiti military stated that its air defense forces were responding to the missile and drone attacks. (21st Century Business Herald)
YYeTs APP is launched, with monthly membership starting from 25 yuan
Recently, some netizens shared the "Welcome back, old users" email sent by "YYeTs" to its long-time users. A reporter from Lan Jing News found after inquiry that "YYeTs" has now been renamed "YYeTs Share Wonderful Content", and is available for download on channels including the iOS App Store and Android app stores. The download page marks "Genuine Dubbing and Subtitling". The YYeTs APP has also launched paid membership services, with a monthly membership priced at 25 yuan, a quarterly membership at 60 yuan, and an annual membership at 175 yuan. The predecessor of YYeTs was the subtitle group "YYeTs" founded in 2003. After its establishment, the YYeTs subtitle group translated many hit works such as *The Big Bang Theory* and *Game of Thrones*, but as the copyright issue of the subtitle group has always been in a gray area, its fate has long been precarious. (Lan Jing News)
The winning lottery numbers for Enflame Technology have been released, totaling 20657
Enflame Technology (688801) disclosed the online winning results of its initial public offering on September 3. There are a total of 20657 winning lottery numbers, and each winning number can only subscribe for 500 shares of Enflame Technology. (Jiemian News)
The World Meteorological Organization confirms that El Niño has formed and may develop into a super strong level
On September 3, the World Meteorological Organization released a notice confirming that the El Niño phenomenon has formed and will continue to intensify. It is expected to develop into a super strong level, and the risk of extreme weather may continue until 2027, with the probability of the event lasting until February 2027 approaching 100%. The Pacific Ocean has sufficient accumulated heat to provide momentum for the intensification of El Niño, which will change the global pattern of rainfall and temperature, and raise the risks of floods, droughts and high temperatures. The organization announced the launch of the largest-scale mobilization in the past 50 years to strengthen global meteorological early warning. El Niño is a natural climatic phenomenon and is not caused by climate change. (CCTV News)
Volkswagen plans to cut another 50,000 jobs and drastically streamline its product line
Volkswagen released a statement on September 3, stating that the company's supervisory board has unanimously approved a comprehensive restructuring plan to improve operational efficiency and enhance competitiveness. The plan calls for an additional 50,000 job cuts, bringing the total number of planned layoffs at the company to 100,000. Volkswagen will streamline its business and asset portfolio, while reducing its model lineup by about 50% by 2035. (Jiemian News)
A 2980-yuan "Pang Donglai Job Hunting Training Course" appears on the market, and the official refutes rumors that there is no related cooperation
On September 2, according to the investigation of Cover News, a 2-day-1-night "Pang Donglai Job Interview Training Course" priced at 2980 yuan has emerged in the market. The course includes corporate culture presentation, in-store observation, resume revision and mock interview and other contents. The relevant institution stated that it has no cooperation with Pang Donglai, this project is a newly launched business and there is no historical pass rate data for the time being. The customer service of Pang Donglai responded that it has never set up or authorized any job hunting training courses, all formal recruitments are subject to the official public account. The enterprise is not a law enforcement agency, so it cannot directly stop the third-party training behaviors. Pang Donglai reminds that all its recruitments do not charge any fees, and any act of charging fees in the name of training or internal referral is fraud. (Cover News)
A series of astronomical phenomena will take place one after another in September, and this year's Mid-Autumn Festival moon is a rare "full moon on the 17th day of the lunar month"
According to Xinhua News Agency, astronomical phenomena including the Pleiades accompanying the Moon, lunar occultation of Venus, Mid-Autumn Festival moon, and Neptune at opposition will appear successively in September. From September 7 to 17, the Moon will approach Mars, Jupiter, Venus and Antares in turn. The Venus accompanying the Moon on September 14 has high ornamental value, with better observation conditions in southern China, and lunar occultation of Venus is expected to be observed in some areas of Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi. On September 19, the smallest first quarter moon of this year will arrive. This year's Mid-Autumn Festival falls on September 25, and the Mid-Autumn Festival moon is a rare "full moon on the 17th day of the lunar calendar". The fullest moment appears at 00:49 on September 27, and the nights from September 25 to 27 are all suitable for moon appreciation. (Xinhua News Agency)
Trump Administration: Copying Works for Model Training Does Not Violate Copyright Law
The Trump Administration has taken a stance in support of OpenAI and other artificial intelligence companies in a large-scale copyright infringement lawsuit involving many major U.S. publishing institutions, including mainstream newspapers, book publishers, record companies and tens of thousands of independent authors. The U.S. Department of Justice issued a statement on local Tuesday, supporting the "fair use" defense put forward by OpenAI in copyright lawsuits filed by multiple publishing institutions and a number of writers. The U.S. Department of Justice pointed out that the government encourages the policy of developing and maintaining the United States' leading position in the field of artificial intelligence technology, and urged the federal judge in New York to rule that copying works for training large language models does not violate copyright law. (Sina Finance)
Jiangsu: Vague expressions such as "high salary" and "negotiable salary" shall not be used in recruitment
On September 2, according to the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security, Jiangsu has released the Reference Text for Recruitment Information Release to standardize the order of the human resources market from the source. The reference text clarifies that vague expressions such as "high salary" and "negotiable salary" are not allowed in recruitment, and items for withholding and remittance must be specified item by item, for example, "monthly wage system, 6000~9000 yuan/month, consisting of basic wage, performance wage and overtime wage, paid via bank transfer on the 20th of each month, with individual income tax, social insurance and housing fund withheld in accordance with the law"; "piece-rate system, basic wage 2000~3000 yuan, piece rate unit price 10~20 yuan". Welfare benefits shall specify various subsidies, accommodation, meals and other benefits, and no false promises are allowed, for example, "entitled to transportation and night shift subsidies, holiday benefits, annual physical examination, dormitory or housing subsidy provided, free working meals on workdays". (National Business Daily)
Three major U.S. stock indexes closed higher collectively, with Tesla surging more than 5%
36Kr learned that as of the close on September 3, the three major U.S. stock indexes rose across the board. The Nasdaq was up 1.4%, the S&P 500 gained 1.06%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1.18%. Large tech stocks generally rallied: Tesla jumped more than 5%, Meta rose over 3%, Microsoft gained over 2%, NVIDIA, Google and Amazon increased by more than 1%, and Apple was up 1%. Popular Chinese concept stocks posted mixed performance: Baidu rose over 1%, Bilibili, Li Auto and XPeng Inc. saw slight gains, Alibaba and NIO closed flat, NetEase fell more than 1%, while Pinduoduo and JD recorded a slight decline.
IPO in Progress
IPO review status of YMTC Holdings on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board has been updated to "Inquired"
According to the official website information of the Shanghai Stock Exchange on September 3, the IPO review status of Yangtze Memory Technologies Holding Co., Ltd. (abbreviated as "YMTC Holdings") on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board has been changed to "Inquired". Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Wuhan, YMTC Holdings is a well-known domestic memory IDM enterprise. YMTC Holdings plans to raise 33 billion yuan through this IPO, which is the project with the largest planned fundraising scale among all Sci-Tech Innovation Board IPOs to date. Among the raised funds, 20.8 billion yuan will be used for the technical upgrading project of Yangtze Memory's mass production line, and 12.2 billion yuan will be used for R&D-related fundraising investment projects. (Securities Times)
Shenzhen Ousetong Holding Co., Ltd. Submitted Listing Application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange
36Kr learned from the filings of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that Shenzhen Ousetong Holding Co., Ltd. has submitted a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with CICC and Shenwan Hongyuan (Hong Kong) acting as joint sponsors.
Baishibao Launches IPO Tutoring for the Beijing Stock Exchange
36Kr has learned from the disclosure on the official website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission that Zhejiang Baishibao Electric Appliance Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Baishibao") completed the tutoring filing registration at the Zhejiang Securities Regulatory Bureau on September 2, 2026. It plans to publicly issue shares to unspecified qualified investors and list on the Beijing Stock Exchange, with Zheshang Securities as the tutoring securities firm.
AI computing power company Nscale's contracted revenue rises to about 103 billion US dollars, and it may launch IPO as early as this month
On September 3, according to reports, Nscale, the UK's emerging AI cloud service provider, has disclosed to potential investors that its contracted revenue has increased to about 103 billion US dollars, including the 45 billion US dollar computing power agreement reached with Anthropic. Supported by NVIDIA, the company may launch its IPO as early as this month. (Jiemian News)
Investment and Financing
"Handing Intelligent" completes tens of millions of yuan strategic round financing
36Kr has learned that "Handing Intelligent" has recently closed a strategic financing round of tens of millions of yuan, led by Hongrong Capital, with follow-on investment from listed companies including Desay SV, Wuchan Zhongda, Changjiang Industrial Investment, Haichuan Capital, Tianhong Investment, Jiangyuan Investment and other institutions. The raised funds will be mainly used for the mass production and implementation of Steer-by-Wire (SBW) technology and the capacity upgrade of high-end EPS.
Large Company Earnings Reports
Three Squirrels' H1 revenue posts slight drop while net profit surges, with online channel structure adjusted and H-share listing planning terminated
On August 28, Three Squirrels released its 2026 semi-annual report, recording a revenue of 5.28 billion yuan in the first half of the year, down 3.61% year on year; the net profit attributable to shareholders reached 249 million yuan, up 79.94% year on year. The proportion of revenue from third-party e-commerce platforms continues to decline, the revenue proportion from Douyin's ecosystem platforms has dropped, and resources are tilted to Tmall and JD.com. The offline distribution business has grown significantly, the company is scaling back its mass snack store network while expanding the new lifestyle store format. The company announced on the same day that it will terminate the 17-month-long planning for overseas issuance and listing on the H-share market. The financial report attributes the revenue decline to changes in online traffic rules, offline category adjustments, and optimization of store formats, while the net profit growth is driven by peak season sales, manufacturing upgrading and improved traffic delivery efficiency. (The Economic Observer)
Cool Products
$1 Coin Featuring Trump's Portrait Officially Released
According to CCTV Finance, on September 2 local time, the United States Mint officially launched the $1 coin printed with Trump's portrait. (Cailian Press)
Image: From the Internet
Alibaba Cloud: Qoder Launches "Glasses Version", Which Will Be Connected to Qwen AI Glasses and Leqi AI Glasses
36Kr learned from Alibaba Cloud that Qoder, Alibaba's intelligent agent programming platform, has launched the "Qoder Glasses Version", which will be connected to Qwen AI Glasses and Leqi AI Glasses in the first batch. In the future, users do not need to turn on their mobile phones or touch the screen. By putting on the glasses, they can get the Agent to perform tasks through voice interaction anytime and anywhere. The Qoder Qwen AI Glasses version has started targeted invitation tests, and its full set of functions will be officially released at the 2026 Apsara Conference.
Compiled | Li Qi