9am Krypton | Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development: All residential buildings with 4 floors and above must be equipped with elevators; Scalpers claim that iPhone 18 Pro has no buyer in the market; The cheapest new stock this year, "Shengu Group", saw its intraday increase reach nearly 300% on the second day of listing.

Today's Hotspot Overview

• OpenAI is reportedly close to solving another "Millennium Prize Problem" and is expected to crack the Hodge Conjecture
• Hackers exploit Anthropic's Claude to breach OpenAI
• Warren Buffett announces his resignation from the position of Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway
• Apple responds to the high repair cost of iPhone Duo
• China Railway 12306 responds to the high-speed rail fare hike during the National Day holiday
• State Administration for Market Regulation: 37,000 non-compliant power bank products sold online have been intercepted, and 3831 stores have been urged to remove non-compliant products from shelves or block the listing of such products

TOP 3 Major News

Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development: All residential buildings of 4 floors and above shall be equipped with elevators

Chen Shaowang, Spokesperson and Vice Minister of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, stated at the press conference of the State Council Information Office that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the key to improving people's living standards is to build high-quality houses, and the work will be promoted across the whole chain and full life cycle covering sound standards, superior design, quality materials, fine construction and proper operation and maintenance.

In response to the public feedback on the problem of insufficient floor height, we have raised the standard floor height from the original 2.8 meters to 3 meters; to solve the problem of the elderly group going up and down stairs, the new standard puts forward that all residential buildings of 4 floors and above shall be installed with elevators; for the issue of child safety protection, the height of guardrails for all overhead parts such as balconies and external corridors is uniformly increased to no less than 1.2 meters. (Financial Associated Press)

Scalpers Say No One Wants iPhone 18 Pro, Red iPhone 18 Pro Max Is Relatively Popular 

According to reports from CLS and National Business Daily, information obtained from on-site scalpers in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen shows that the iPhone 18 Pro Max can generally be recycled with a price premium of over 300 yuan. Multiple scalpers noted that the red iPhone 18 Pro Max is well-received, with the maximum price premium hitting 900 yuan when it was first launched, and the premium has now dropped to around 500 yuan. For the iPhone 18 Pro model, many scalpers said they refuse to take it for recycling for the time being, while some others stated that they can recycle it at the exact same price as the official store. On-site scalpers mentioned that compared with the iPhone 18 Pro Max, the iPhone 18 Pro version has drawn far less public attention. The above-mentioned scalpers said, "Nobody wants the iPhone 18 Pro version."

The current official pre-order waiting time for the iPhone 18 Pro series is significantly shorter than that of previous years. According to Apple's official website, if you pre-order the red 256G iPhone 18 Pro on the official store, it will be delivered within 11 working days; the red 256G iPhone 18 Pro Max will take 15 working days to deliver. This is a notable reduction compared to the iPhone 17 series, which usually required a waiting time of 3 to 4 weeks. (Guilin Evening News)

The cheapest new stock this year, "Shengu Group", saw its intraday surge approaching 300% on the second day after listing 

On September 18, Shengu Group opened lower, but the trend reversed in less than an hour. It staged an extreme rally in the afternoon, with its intraday increase nearly hitting 300%. As of market close, the share price of Shengu Group stood at 57.77 yuan per share, up 177.74% on the single day. The total market capitalization of the company was about 179.66 billion yuan, and its trading triggered temporary suspension twice on that day.

Shengu Group was listed on September 17, 2026, with an IPO issue price of 4.39 yuan per share, which is the new stock with the lowest issue price within this year. In terms of returns from new share subscription, investors who won one allotment of 500 shares need to pay 2195 yuan. Calculated at the intraday highest price of 82.59 yuan on that day, the maximum floating profit per single allotment reached 39,100 yuan. (The Beijing News)

AI Frontier

Zhipu AI Launches GLM-5.3-FlashX

36Kr has learned that Zhipu AI has officially launched GLM-5.3-FlashX, with a maximum inference speed of 200 tokens/s.

Hackers Exploit Anthropic's Claude to Breach OpenAI

It is reported that two weeks after a group of AI agents broke through the restrictions of OpenAI's systems and launched attacks on Hugging Face, the ChatGPT developer has detected another artificial intelligence-driven intrusion incident. A team of independent security researchers used the Claude software developed by Anthropic to successfully obtain the access permission to a ChatGPT account of an OpenAI employee, which enabled them to read and modify the private software cache content of the company. The team participated in a vulnerability hunting program of OpenAI, which provides researchers with a secure environment to attempt to break through the enterprise's systems. They reported the vulnerability to the company immediately after discovering it. OpenAI paid a bounty of 6,500 US dollars for this, and the team also disclosed the details of this operation to the media for the first time. (Sina Finance)

MiniMax Code CLI is Officially Open-Sourced

36Kr learned from MiniMax that the v0.4.12 version of MiniMax Code CLI is officially open to developers around the world, and its source code is officially released under the MIT License.

OpenAI is reportedly close to solving another "Millennium Prize Problem" and may conquer the Hodge Conjecture

On September 17, it was reported that OpenAI is close to solving another mathematical problem among the "Millennium Prize Problems" — the Hodge Conjecture. OpenAI staff expect that this problem may be solved in the near future. The Hodge Conjecture is one of the seven "Millennium Prize Problems" proposed by the Clay Mathematics Institute in the United States, and solving any of them can get a prize of 1 million US dollars. (Jiemian News)

Four Major AI Coding Agents Expose Identical Security Vulnerabilities, Risk of "Skills" Update Mechanism Being Hijacked

Cybersecurity startup Air exclusively disclosed that four mainstream AI coding agents, namely Anthropic Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Google Gemini CLI and GitHub Copilot, share the same logical flaw: their automatic "Skills" update mechanism does not verify content changes, allowing attackers to disguise malicious updates with identical names to bypass scans, and silently steal enterprise code or intellectual property. This vulnerability stems from the identical design of the verification mechanism across different vendors, highlighting a common blind spot in the industry. At present, the other three vendors have rolled out fixes except GitHub; GitHub stated that its platform mechanism can block such attacks, but did not confirm the patch status. (Sina Finance)

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon: Proposes "Light-Touch" Federal-Level Regulation on AI

While endless debates over the future development path of U.S. artificial intelligence are ongoing in Silicon Valley, Jamie Dimon, Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Chase, stated his view on U.S. Eastern Time Wednesday that he supports the U.S. to implement "light-touch" federal-level regulation on the artificial intelligence industry and avoid local regulation, as inconsistent regulations across different states will increase the complexity of AI commercial deployment. He noted: "If regulation is a must, it should be rolled out at the federal level and adopt the light-touch regulatory model. The federal government has its own considerations, and so do all the states... I do believe this will become a tough challenge. If different state laws apply to all sorts of matters, business activities can barely be carried out." (CLS)

Anthropic plans to build 5 GW of computing power by the end of the year

It is reported that Anthropic plans to build 5 GW of computing power by the end of the year. (China Finance News)

Big Companies / Major Events

Yuan breaks through 6.7, both onshore and offshore RMB hit new highs since January 2023

On September 18, the offshore RMB exchange rate against the US dollar broke through the 6.70 mark. On the same day, the central parity of RMB against the US dollar was set at 6.7521, up 59 points. As of 9:50, the onshore and offshore RMB traded at 6.6990 and 6.6971 respectively against the US dollar.

In the early hours of September 17, Beijing time, the Federal Reserve announced that it would raise the target range of the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 3.75% to 4%. Against this backdrop, the US Dollar Index rose to a nearly one-month high, climbing back above the 100 mark, and non-US currencies were generally under pressure. In contrast, the RMB exchange rate continued its steady and firm trend. Industry insiders noted that supported by factors such as current account surplus and the resilience of corporate foreign exchange settlement, the RMB maintains a robust performance. (CLS)

The Bank of Japan raises interest rates again after 3 months, which is in line with market expectations 

On September 18, the Bank of Japan raised interest rates by 25 basis points, lifting the target interest rate from 1.00% to 1.25%, hitting the highest level in 31 years, which is consistent with market expectations. The Bank of Japan passed the interest rate hike decision with a 7-to-2 voting result. (Financial Associated Press)

Buffett Announces Resignation as Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway

96-year-old Warren Buffett announced in a letter to shareholders on Friday that he will step down from the post of Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. In a separate announcement, Berkshire stated that Buffett will immediately take the position of Honorary Chairman and continue to serve as a member of the company's board of directors. In accordance with an established long-term succession plan, his son Howard Buffett will succeed him as Chairman. Susan Decker will continue to serve as the Lead Independent Director. (Yicai Global)

Trump Says Again That the War Against Iran Will End Very Soon

On September 18 local time, U.S. President Trump said when referring to Iran that "the war will end very soon". Trump reaffirmed that Iran will not possess nuclear weapons. He also stated that once the war with Iran ends, gasoline prices will fall back to previous levels or even lower. Meanwhile, Trump said that the United States is in contact with the Houthi forces in Yemen. (CCTV News)

Australia plans to ban smart glasses in government workplaces

According to reports from Reuters and multiple other media outlets on the 17th, considering factors including privacy and security, Australia intends to prohibit the use of smart glasses equipped with cameras in federal government workplaces. In addition, the Australian government will also convene a roundtable meeting with a number of large enterprises operating in Australia including Microsoft, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and Telstra, to conduct consultations on the usage specifications of artificial intelligence in workplaces. (Xinhua News Agency)

SK Hynix: No decision has been made yet on whether to build a chip factory in Japan

According to reports, SK Hynix stated on September 18 that it has not yet decided whether to build a chip factory in Japan. (Jiemian News)

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission advances around-the-clock trading and approves exemptions for tokenized securities transactions

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) held a roundtable at its Washington headquarters on Thursday to discuss extending traditional trading systems to the 24/7 around-the-clock trading model that is commonly adopted in the cryptocurrency sector. One hour before the meeting, the agency issued an order to approve tokenized securities transactions. (Sina Finance)

SpaceX: Plans to conduct the 14th test flight of Starship as early as September 28

On September 17 local time, SpaceX posted on social media: "We currently plan to carry out the 14th flight mission of Starship as early as Monday, September 28, and the specific time is subject to the approval of regulatory authorities." (Jiemian News)

Apple Responds to the High Repair Cost of iPhone Duo

Regarding the official repair price of iPhone Duo, customer service representatives stated that pre-orders for iPhone Duo have not been launched yet, and the specific repair prices will be announced after the pre-order starts. The customer service noted that iPhone Duo is designed with internal and external dual screens, so its repair cost may be "indeed quite expensive". Taking iPhone 18 Pro Max as an example, the normal repair cost for a damaged screen is 3198 yuan. (China News Finance)

12306 Responds to High-Speed Rail Fare Hike During National Day Holiday 

According to China News Finance, on September 16, high-speed rail tickets for the day before the National Day holiday went on sale. Some netizens said, "I was preparing to grab tickets for the National Day holiday, only to find that the ticket prices have unexpectedly risen."

Screenshots posted by netizens show that the ticket price for train D988 from Chongqing North to Nanjing South starts at 446 yuan on September 25, while the starting price is 520 yuan on September 30. Another netizen shared the fare change of train G6592 from Guangzhou to Chaoshan, saying, "For the same train, the usual price is 279 yuan, it rose to 298 yuan during the Mid-Autumn Festival, and rose to 302 yuan during the National Day holiday."

On the morning of September 18, the customer service stated that high-speed rail fares may fluctuate due to factors such as holiday passenger flow, and the discount varies on different dates, which does not mean a price increase. The specific fare is subject to the official display on 12306. Regarding when to buy tickets for more favorable prices, the customer service said that it is impossible to guarantee the discount level at a certain period. Under normal circumstances, there will be no major changes during the ticket release period, but special circumstances are not excluded. (China News Finance)

The 15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Cultural Industry: Support qualified cultural enterprises to raise funds through listing, equity, bonds and other means

36Kr learned that the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has issued the *15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Cultural Industry*. It states that the country will promote innovation in cultural financial services and products, and guide the precise alignment between financial services and the demands of the cultural industry. Banking financial institutions are encouraged to scale up credit support for cultural enterprises. Financial institutions are supported to develop innovative financial products and services that fit the characteristics of the cultural industry. Qualified cultural enterprises are supported to raise financing through channels including public listing, equity financing and bond issuance. Venture capital institutions are guided to increase investment in cultural enterprises at the start-up and growth stages. Insurance institutions are encouraged to launch insurance businesses targeting cultural enterprises. The country will promote the issuance of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) in the infrastructure sector for eligible cultural industry projects. The functions of the Cultural and Tourism Financial Service Center will be better leveraged to improve the investment and financing services for the cultural industry.

Ministry of Finance: Stamp duty on securities transactions reached 216 billion yuan from January to August, up 82% year on year

36Kr learned from the Ministry of Finance that the total stamp duty revenue hit 385.8 billion yuan from January to August, rising 35.6% year on year, among which the stamp duty on securities transactions stood at 216 billion yuan, up 82% year on year.

The country's first national marine Token factory lands in Qingdao

36Kr has learned that the country's first exclusive intelligent element supply platform targeting the marine industry, the Marine Token Factory, has been officially released and settled in Qingdao. According to the introduction, the overall architecture of the Marine Token Factory consists of three parts: data, computing power and algorithm. In terms of data, the platform can provide more than 130 types of marine-related data such as offshore operation specifications and marine environmental elements, and build an exclusive database oriented to the front-line demands of the marine industry. In terms of computing power, a marine computing power resource pool with a total computing power scale of over 800P has been formed and is still expanding continuously. In terms of algorithms, it has gathered more than 20 proprietary large models in the marine field such as Guanhai and Haixing, as well as more than 30 general-purpose models including the "Nine Heavens" large model. According to the plan, the Marine Token Factory will be deeply applied in practical scenarios such as deep-sea oil and gas exploration to meet the demands of leading enterprises in the industry.

CATL repurchases 1.5126 million A-shares

36Kr has learned from the announcement of CATL that the company repurchased 1,512,600 A-shares on September 18, with the repurchase price range from 300.89 yuan per share to 302.63 yuan per share, and the total repurchase amount is approximately 456 million yuan.

UK King convenes AI Summit, Jensen Huang: Regulate products rather than technologies

On September 17 local time, King Charles III of the United Kingdom hosted the Artificial Intelligence Summit at Dumfries House in Scotland. Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, Demis Hassabis, founder of Google DeepMind, senior executives of global leading artificial intelligence (AI) giants including OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as representatives of the UK government attended the meeting, to jointly discuss the opportunities, risks and governance principles of AI development. (Yicai)

Disney Appoints Adam Smith as Chairman of Direct-to-Consumer Business

On September 17 local time, Disney announced the appointment of Adam Smith as Chairman of the company's DTC (Direct-to-Consumer) business. Smith will be responsible for the company's global entertainment SVOD business, and oversee the products, engineering, advertising technology, partnerships, data and analytics of Disney+ and Hulu. In addition, Disney also announced the appointment of Joe Earley as President of Television Brand and Content Strategy. He will lead the strategic development of Disney Entertainment's television brands, and oversee all content and production affairs, labor relations and creative talent cultivation for international original content and production. (Jiemian News)

State Administration for Market Regulation: 37,000 non-compliant power bank products sold online intercepted, 3,831 stores ordered to remove listings or block new product uploads

According to CCTV News, the State Administration for Market Regulation recently launched a three-month special rectification campaign targeting power banks without CCC certification, which has now achieved phased progress. As of now, market regulation authorities across the country have inspected 425 power bank manufacturers, 1,496 sales markets, 55,600 stores, 812,000 shared power banks and power banks sold online, and found 395 problem clues. Meanwhile, authorities have urged e-commerce platforms to include "three-no" power banks, products without CCC marks, products whose CCC certificates have been revoked or suspended, and counterfeit "CCC stickers" into the prohibited sales catalog, and take measures such as removing listings and closing stores. They have connected to the CCC certificate online verification interface to realize automatic comparison of certificate status, real-time interception, and timely clearance of existing problematic products. Since the launch of the special rectification campaign, 7 major e-commerce platforms have been urged to carry out 3.763 million online verifications, intercept 37,000 non-compliant power bank products, and order 3,831 stores to remove existing listings or block new product uploads. (CCTV News, Jiupai News)

Reports say Tesla's AI5 chip has entered trial production at Samsung's Taylor factory

Industry sources say Samsung Electronics has started prototype production at its foundry in Taylor, Texas, the United States, to supply AI5 chips to Tesla. Samsung's Taylor plant was originally scheduled to be fully put into production around November. However, due to the surging demand for AI chips from large technology companies, Samsung has advanced the prototype production to start yield verification, plans to complete mass production verification by the end of this year, and achieve full supply next year. (Sina Finance)

Venezuela is about to reach an agreement to transfer its gold reserves from the United Kingdom to the United States

According to people familiar with the matter, the Venezuelan government and the opposition are on the verge of reaching an agreement to transfer gold reserves worth approximately 4 billion US dollars from the Bank of England to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Under the terms under discussion, this batch of gold may be used as collateral for government borrowing to fund fiscal expenditures. The government will not be allowed to sell its gold holdings immediately, but will have full legal control over them. The Bank of England stated that it cannot proceed with relevant operations unless a UK court issues a ruling that clearly identifies the legal owner of the account. (Sina Finance)

The PHLX Semiconductor Index rallied sharply in late trading to close 2.78% higher, and the cryptocurrency concept sector posted a sharp surge

The three major U.S. stock indexes closed mixed. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.39%, with a cumulative gain of 0.72% for the whole week; the S&P 500 Index rose 0.17%, with a cumulative drop of 0.08% for the week; the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.18%, with a cumulative decline of 1.69% for the week, marking three consecutive weekly losses. The PHLX Semiconductor Index pulled up rapidly in the late trading session and closed up 2.78%. Memory concept stocks rose broadly: SanDisk jumped about 11%, Coherent rose more than 7%, Seagate Technology climbed over 6%, Western Digital increased by more than 4%, Micron Technology went up over 3%, and AMD and SK Hynix gained more than 2%. The cryptocurrency concept sector rallied sharply: Strategy rose more than 16%, MARA Holdings climbed over 13%, Coinbase gained more than 11%, Robinhood rose over 9%, Bitmine and Cipher increased by more than 8%, and Circle went up over 7%. Netflix fell more than 4% as Wells Fargo downgraded the stock's rating from Neutral to Underweight, and cut its target price from $80 to $57. (JIEMIAN NEWS)

South Korea to Extend Fuel Tax Cuts to November Amid Price Pressure

South Korea's Ministry of Finance said on Friday that it will extend the fuel tax reduction program by two months to November, so as to ease the public's price burden amid the long-running tensions in the Middle East. Under the measure, the current 15% tax cut for gasoline and 25% tax cut for diesel and butane, which was originally scheduled to expire at the end of this month, will continue to be implemented until the end of November. (Sina Finance)

Listing in Progress

Sifang Jingchuang: Decides to Postpone the Global Offering and Listing of H Shares

36Kr learned from the announcement of Sifang Jingchuang that the company is currently carrying out relevant work for the application to issue H shares and list on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In view of the current market conditions, the company has decided to postpone the global offering and listing of this H share issuance.

China Securities Regulatory Commission approves Aotuo Technology's STAR Market IPO registration

36Kr has learned that the China Securities Regulatory Commission has approved the registration application of Aotuo Technology Co., Ltd. (abbreviated as "Aotuo Technology") for its initial public offering of shares and listing on the STAR Market.

Investment and Financing

"Yusuan Xinghe" Completes 100-Million-Yuan Angel Round and Pre-A Round Financing

36Kr has learned that "Yusuan Xinghe" has closed a 100-million-yuan angel round and pre-A round of financing, led by Linge Venture Capital, with follow-on investments from Haizhu Urban Development, Qingxin Capital, Gaojie Capital, Knowledge City Group and Jifu Capital. The core business of "Yusuan Xinghe" is the "space-based large model" that can operate in orbit, which aims to realize real-time training, inference and closed-loop processing of remote sensing data in the space end, and provide native intelligent model capabilities for on-orbit computing.

Cool Products

Cainiao Delivers Guangzhou's First Climbing Robot Warehouse to Client

36Kr learned that recently, Cainiao has delivered the local first new-generation self-developed climbing robot warehouse to its client in Guangzhou. The warehouse's space utilization rate has been increased by 2 times, while the picking efficiency has also been greatly improved. It is understood that the self-developed climbing robot of Cainiao has been released for only 5 months, and has completed the delivery and operation of multiple projects in Dongguan, Hong Kong, Guangzhou and other regions. In addition, the projects in Spain and the Netherlands have also entered the delivery stage. The projects cover domestic logistics in China and European logistics, involving multiple industries such as domestic e-commerce, cross-border e-commerce, electronic manufacturing and apparel production.

Edited by | Li Qi