Krypton Evening News | Kuaishou's 618 Merchant Conference Kicks Off in Hangzhou; OpenAI Reportedly in Talks to Invest Up to $1.5 Billion in a Private Equity Joint Venture; The General Offices of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council Release a Major Document on Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction
Large Companies:
Tesla's AI Voice Function to Be Launched Soon
According to Shanghai Cyberspace Administration, on April 21, Shanghai added a newly registered generative AI service, which is Tesla's in - car voice large - model service. In response, on April 22, a Tesla representative said, "Stay tuned." As required, launched generative AI applications should publicly disclose the information of the registered generative AI services used at prominent positions or on product detail pages, indicating the model name and registration number, and add identification for generative synthetic content in accordance with the "Measures for Identifying AI - Generated and Synthetic Content". (Yicai)
Kuaishou's 618 Merchant Conference Kicks off in Hangzhou
36Kr learned that on April 22, Kuaishou E - commerce held its 618 Merchant Conference in Hangzhou, announcing that it will invest traffic worth tens of billions of yuan in 2026 to support high - quality supply. Kuaishou E - commerce data shows that in 2025, the daily active merchant scale increased by over 15% year - on - year, the number of newly settled high - quality merchants increased by 26% year - on - year, and the daily active brands increased by 34% year - on - year. On the user demand side, in March this year, the monthly average number of purchasing users of short - videos increased by over 15% year - on - year, and the monthly average number of purchasing users of the general shelf increased by over 17% year - on - year.
SoYoung Reaches a Strategic Cooperation with Jinbo Biotech
36Kr learned that on April 22, SoYoung reached a strategic cooperation with Jinbo Biotech. Jinbo Biotech will exclusively supply its new product "Weiyimei ColPact" to SoYoung's offline light medical beauty stores, "SoYoung Youth Clinics". As of now, "SoYoung Youth Clinics" have opened 56 stores across the country. According to Jin Xing, CEO of SoYoung, the company's goal of opening over 85 stores by the end of this year and achieving quarterly profitability remains unchanged.
TUMI's "Encounter with the Mediterranean" Limited - time Space Opens at Grand Gateway 66 in Shanghai
On April 21, TUMI, a high - quality business, travel, and lifestyle brand, launched a "Encounter with the Mediterranean" themed limited - time space in the atrium of the south building of Grand Gateway 66 in Shanghai, presenting its 2026 spring color series. The limited - time space will be open to the public from April 22 to 26.
Investment and Financing:
"Zhongke Tianta" Completes Nearly 100 Million Yuan Series A+ Financing
36Kr learned that recently, "Zhongke Tianta" announced the completion of nearly 100 million yuan in Series A+ financing. This round of financing was led by "Wenyun Investment" and supported by "Xike Holdings". The funds from this round of financing will be mainly used for technology R & D and capacity expansion, with a focus on the upgrade of the aerospace large - model and the field of laser communication. The company will accelerate the strategic upgrade of its main business from software to a software - hardware integrated model and will officially start the trial production of the laser communication production line in the near future.
"Qingting Acoustics" Completes Series B+ Financing of Hundreds of Millions of Yuan
36Kr learned that recently, "Qingting Acoustics" announced the completion of Series B+ financing of hundreds of millions of yuan. This round of financing was jointly participated in by Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group, Suzhou Venture Capital Group, Suzhou High - tech Financial Holding Group, Hefei High - tech Investment Co., Ltd., Xingtai Capital, and Hefei Cultural Industry Investment Co., Ltd. The financing funds will be mainly used for core technology iteration, mass - production scale expansion, product matrix expansion, market expansion, and the improvement of large - scale manufacturing and delivery capabilities, further accelerating the large - scale implementation of sound - focusing screen - related products and solutions, and promoting the continuous expansion of directional hearing capabilities in more terminals and application scenarios.
OpenAI Reportedly in Talks to Invest Up to $1.5 Billion in a Private - Equity Joint Venture
On April 22, it was reported that OpenAI has committed to investing up to $1.5 billion in a new joint venture with a private - equity firm. This move aims to defeat its competitor Anthropic and capture a share of the increasingly profitable enterprise AI tool sales market. OpenAI will first invest $500 million in equity in the joint venture, which will be valued at $10 billion. A round of financing is expected to be completed in early May. OpenAI can choose to invest an additional $1 billion in the future. The new joint venture, internally named "DeployCo", has started recruiting its own employees and has also absorbed employees from OpenAI. The joint venture will charge its customers to help them embed AI technology into their businesses. (Jiemian)
New Products:
Ant Bailing Ling - 2.6 - flash Officially Launched, Priced at $0.1 per Million Tokens
On April 22, Ant Bailing officially launched Ling - 2.6 - flash, an Instruct model with a total of 104B parameters and 7.4B active parameters. This model has reached the SOTA level of the same size on Agent - related benchmarks such as BFCL - V4, TAU2 - bench, SWE - bench Verified, Claw - Eval, and PinchBench. In terms of API pricing, Ling - 2.6 - flash is priced at $0.1 per million input tokens and $0.3 per million output tokens. Currently, the API of Ling - 2.6 - flash has been officially opened to users, and a one - week limited - time free trial is provided. Since the launch of Ling - 2.6 - flash, the daily average token call volume has reached the level of 100B, with a weekly growth of over 5000%.
Mobvoi Releases AI - Native Collaboration Platform CodeBanana
36Kr learned that on April 21, Mobvoi held a "Super Organization" strategic press conference in Beijing and officially released the enterprise - level AI - native collaboration platform CodeBanana. It is reported that CodeBanana takes "projects" as the core unit and constructs a trinity architecture of "group chat communication + Agent execution + workspace precipitation". In terms of permission design, CodeBanana provides two modes: Team Agent and Private Ask.
Ezviz Releases Steam Floor Cleaner with "Starry World Model"
36Kr learned that Ezviz released multiple AI hardware products. At the level of the home intelligent center, Ezviz launched the EZVIZ AI CoreX equipped with the Blue Ocean Large Model 2.0, aiming to become the local "smart brain" of the home. In the segmented product line, the AI Portable Camera Pika is positioned as the first AI device for children, with dual - camera and intelligent Q&A functions. In addition, Ezviz also released the AI dual - engine steam floor - cleaning robot. The flagship model, Star 10 Master, is equipped with the "Ezviz Starry World Model" that can understand the home environment, achieving integrated perception and decision - making for autonomous cleaning.
Other Noteworthy News:
Reporters just learned from Shanghai Customs that in the first quarter of this year, the total import and export value of the Yangtze River Delta region reached 4.49 trillion yuan, setting a record high for the same period in history, with a year - on - year increase of 15.8%, accounting for 37.9% of the country's total import and export value. Among them, exports were 2.81 trillion yuan, and imports were 1.68 trillion yuan, accounting for 41% and 33.6% of the country's total export and import values respectively, with year - on - year increases of 12.9% and 21.1% respectively. (Shangguan News)
The "Opinions on Doing a Better Job in Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction at a Higher Level and with Higher Quality" jointly issued by the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council were released to the public. The opinions require that the principle of giving top priority to conservation should be consistently adhered to, and energy conservation and carbon reduction should be integrated into all aspects of economic and social development. Energy conservation and carbon reduction should be carried out at a higher level and with higher quality, and the unreasonable growth of total energy consumption should be firmly curbed. The output efficiency of energy and resources should be continuously improved, and carbon emissions should be effectively reduced from the source, providing strong support for achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality and accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development. The opinions make specific arrangements in aspects such as promoting energy conservation and carbon reduction in coordination with green transformation, vigorously promoting energy conservation and carbon reduction in key areas, further strengthening supervision and management of energy conservation and carbon reduction, and strengthening support and guarantee for energy conservation and carbon reduction work. (Xinhua News Agency)