Krstar Evening News | US Defense Secretary Says Musk's AI Chatbot to Be Integrated into Pentagon System; UBS CEO Reportedly to Step Down in April 2027; WANG Xiaochuan: Baichuan Intelligence Expected to Launch IPO in 2027
Large Companies:
Volvo's NOVO Energy Announces Suspension of Operations
NOVO Energy, a battery company under Volvo Cars, issued a statement saying, "The company is unable to proceed with operations as originally planned until a new technology partner is identified." In addition, affected by this, NOVO Energy plans to conduct layoffs, which will affect all positions in the company. The company said it has notified the relevant unions and submitted a layoff notice for a total of 75 positions to the Swedish labor market management agency. (Caixin)
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, said on the 12th that it has banned more than 544,000 accounts in accordance with Australia's social media ban targeting people under 16. However, according to The Guardian Australia, due to various reasons such as technology, many accounts of people under 16 may not have been banned, or were re - activated after being banned; the age verification for creating new accounts can be "easily" bypassed; some teenagers have switched to using other social media platforms not restricted by the ban after their accounts were banned. (Xinhua News Agency)
The Combined Scale of the Top Three ETF Managers Accounts for Over 40%
Wind data shows that as of January 13, the total scale of ETFs in the entire market exceeded 6.2 trillion yuan. The top three managers are Huaxia Fund, E Fund Management Co., Ltd., and Huatai - Peregrine Fund, with management scales of 1.02 trillion yuan, 924.316 billion yuan, and 649.023 billion yuan respectively. The combined scale of the ETFs of the three companies is close to 2.6 trillion yuan, accounting for more than 40% of the total market scale. (Securities Times)
UBS CEO Reportedly to Step Down in April 2027
According to reports, people familiar with the matter said that Sergio Ermotti, the CEO of UBS, plans to step down in April 2027. Aleksandar Ivanovic, the head of UBS's asset management business, is one of the most likely executives to succeed Ermotti. Other candidates include Iqbal Khan and Robert Karofsky, the co - heads of UBS's wealth management business, and Bea Martin, the chief operating officer. (Sina Finance)
Hyundai Motor Hires Former Nvidia and Tesla Executives to Lead Autonomous Driving Business
Hyundai Motor Group announced in a statement that it has appointed Minwoo Park, a former executive who has worked on the R & D and commercialization of autonomous driving technology at Nvidia and Tesla, as the new head of its Advanced Vehicle Platform (AVP) department to strengthen Hyundai's competitiveness in the fields of software - defined vehicles and autonomous - driving - based vehicle software and accelerate the product development process. (Caixin)
SATELLAI Announces Global Strategic Cooperation with Deutsche Telekom
36Kr learned that during CES, SATELLAI, a global pet intelligent technology company, officially announced a global strategic cooperation with Deutsche Telekom. The two sides will carry out long - term cooperation around global cellular connection capabilities, cross - regional network stability, and the deployment of intelligent devices for real - world usage scenarios, jointly promoting the large - scale implementation of pet safety and health technology in the global market.
Print-Rite: The Company's Mixed - Signal Chips Have Been Shipped to Unitree Technology in Bulk
36Kr learned that Print - Rite said on the interactive platform that its mixed - signal chip products have been shipped to Unitree Technology in bulk.
Investment and Financing:
"Shanhe Aviation" Completes 17 - Million - Yuan Angel + Round of Financing
36Kr learned that "Shanhe Aviation", which focuses on the R & D of eVTOL compound - wing aircraft and low - altitude scenario applications, announced that it will complete an angel + round of financing, with the financing amount close to 17 million yuan. This round of financing is led by the Beijing Science and Technology Innovation Fund, followed by Shunxi Fund and independent investors in the industry. The funds from this round of financing will be mainly used to accelerate the R & D of the flight control system and the assembly and offline of the eVTOL compound - wing aircraft under Shanhe Aviation.
Wang Xiaochuan: Baichuan Intelligence Plans to Launch an IPO in 2027
Wang Xiaochuan, the founder and CEO of Baichuan Intelligence, said that the company is expected to launch an IPO in 2027. (Sina Technology)
New Products:
The 270,000th New WENJIE M9 Rolls off the Production Line
On January 13, the 270,000th panoramic intelligent flagship SUV WENJIE M9 was delivered. It has remained the sales champion in the 500,000 - yuan - level segment for 21 consecutive months. At the same time, it won the top spot on the 2025 list of the residual value rate of domestic extended - range hybrid SUVs and has won the first place in the NPS of new energy vehicles for four consecutive periods.
Zhiyuan Robot's Appearance Design Patent for Manipulator Granted
36Kr learned that the Aiqicha App shows that recently, the appearance design patent for the "manipulator" of Zhiyuan Innovation (Shanghai) Technology Co., Ltd., an affiliated company of Zhiyuan Robot, has been granted. The patent abstract shows that this appearance - designed product is used for the manipulator of intelligent robots, and its applications include gesture interaction, object recognition, object grasping, tactile perception, and human - machine collaboration. The key point of its design lies in the shape of the product.
Omni Health Officially Releases Its New - Generation AI Wearable Product Matrix
36Kr learned that recently, Omni Health officially released its new - generation AI wearable product matrix, which includes the Omni Health Ring Pro focusing on long - term vital sign monitoring and the Omni Health Pin, an automated nutrition tracking terminal based on AI vision technology. Currently, the Ring Pro has started large - scale sales globally, and the Omni Health Pin will be launched within 2026.
Today's Views:
US Defense Secretary Says Musk's AI Chatbot to Be Integrated into Pentagon System
US Defense Secretary Hegseth said that the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot "Grok" under US entrepreneur Musk will be introduced into the Pentagon's network and will run within the US Department of Defense along with Google's generative AI system. (CCTV News)
ECB Governing Council Member Kocher: The Bank Has Not Committed to Any Specific Interest - Rate Path
According to a presentation prepared for a meeting on Tuesday, Martin Kocher, a member of the ECB Governing Council, said that the bank has not committed to any specific interest - rate path, and monetary policy will be decided on a meeting - by - meeting basis. He said that although uncertainty remains high due to ongoing global trade conflicts and geopolitical tensions, it is expected that the inflation rate will remain around the ECB's target level of 2% until the end of 2027. (Sina Finance)
36Kr learned that recently, large companies have shown an obvious trend of salary increases and recruitment expansion. Maimai data shows that in 2025, the number of newly posted positions in enterprises with over 10,000 employees increased by 2.33% year - on - year, making them the only type of enterprise size to achieve growth in the number of newly posted positions. The number of newly posted positions in DJI, Didi, and Xiaomi has all increased significantly. At the same time, among enterprises with over 10,000 employees, the proportion of employees with salary increases within the company reached 17.44%, significantly higher than that of other - sized enterprises. Well - known large companies such as ByteDance and Ant Group have posted multiple urgent recruitment positions on Maimai, among which the annual salaries of multiple positions such as BI data analysis, overseas business project managers, and data development experts exceed 1 million yuan.
Goldman Sachs Lowers 2027 Crude Oil Price Forecast and Expects a Slower Recovery in Oil Prices
On January 11 local time, Goldman Sachs released a research report saying that it expects global oil prices to bottom out in the last quarter of this year, and the subsequent recovery will be later and slower than previously expected. Goldman Sachs said in the report that due to the increase in crude oil supply from the United States, Venezuela, and Russia, the expected prices of Brent and WTI crude oil in 2027 have been lowered by $5 per barrel to $58 per barrel and $54 per barrel respectively. In addition, Goldman Sachs maintains its 2026 Brent oil price forecast at $56 per barrel and WTI oil price forecast at $52 per barrel and expects a supply surplus of 2.3 million barrels per day. (Jiemian)
Other Notable News:
36Kr learned that Kweichow Moutai announced that its operation model will shift from the traditional sales model of "self - sales + distribution" to a multi - dimensional collaborative marketing system of "self - sales + distribution + consignment sales + consignment storage". Among them: in the self - sales model, all products of Kweichow Moutai Liquor are sold through self - operated stores and iMoutai, mainly targeting C - end and B - end consumer groups, and the original distribution model in the self - operated system is cancelled. In the social system, the distribution model is "defining the sales volume, agreeing on the sales area or channel, and transferring the property right to the distributor"; the consignment sales model is "the property right is not transferred, relying on online retail, offline retail, catering, private domain and other channel resources to improve regional coverage and channel reachability"; the consignment storage model is "the property right is not transferred, relying on the channels and customer resources of the consignment storage merchant".
36Kr learned that the Jiangsu provincial government issued a notice on printing and distributing the "Artificial Intelligence +" action plan for Jiangsu Province. The plan points out that it is necessary to vigorously cultivate new smart - native business forms. Guided by model - as - a - service and data - as - a - service, a technology, product, and service system for smart - native applications should be built. Actively explore new models of inclusive and efficient open - source applications. Accelerate the development of general products such as intelligent agent development platforms, automated annotation tools, and open - source operator libraries, improve the industrial chain of smart - native hardware such as embodied intelligent robots, smart wearables, smart home appliances, smart equipment, large - model all - in - one machines, and smart security systems. Encourage information technology enterprises to transform into digital - intelligent enterprises and cultivate a number of unicorn enterprises. Support the innovation and entrepreneurship model of "One - Person Company (OPC)" in artificial intelligence.