9:15 36Kr | ofo Resumes Posting After 5 Years of Suspension, Its Operating Entity Remains Active; Apple Regains Title of World's Most Valuable Company; Lay's Responds to the Origin of "Blue Potato Chips"

Today's Headline Highlights

MoonShot officially launches the open-source model Kimi K3

Zhipu AI's ARR hits $1 billion, growing 15-fold in half a year

FIFA: World Cup champions will receive rings, each with a unique serial number

Domestic refined oil prices will be raised on the evening of July 17

Leading stocks in the A-share memory sector have suffered two consecutive limit-downs

TOP3 Major News

ofo Resumes Updates After 5-Year Hiatus, Its Operating Entity Remains in Existence

On July 15, the official WeChat public account of ofo, which had been silent for nearly 5 years, suddenly released new content. The post published this time was a recruitment notice for a skin disease patient assistance program. Although the content had no connection to its shared bicycle business, this update quickly drew widespread attention. Many netizens brought up the long-unrefunded deposit issues: "When will my 199 yuan deposit be refunded?" "Am I still in the refund queue?" "After all these years, is there any hope of getting my deposit back?"

Many netizens previously assumed that ofo had long gone out of business. However, enterprise information platform Tianyancha shows that ofo's affiliated operating entity, Beijing Bikelock Technology Co., Ltd., is still currently in an existing status. The company has a high level of risk information, involving a large number of judicial cases, enforcement records, and consumption restriction orders. (Yangtze Evening Post)

Apple Reclaims Top Spot in Global Market Capitalization

On July 17, Apple's stock price surpassed NVIDIA's, making it the world's most valuable company. NVIDIA's stock fell 3.2%, with its market capitalization shrinking further to around $4.86 trillion; Apple, riding a recent strong rally, saw its market capitalization rise to roughly $4.90 trillion, reclaiming the global top market cap position after 3 months. (JIEMIAN News) 

Lay's: The "Blue Potato Chips" Are Process Validation Chips for Color Inspection

On the evening of July 16, the consumer who previously reported finding an unusual "blue potato chip" foreign object in a bag of Lay's potato chips posted online that they had received an official statement from Lay's. After verification, the item in question is a color validation chip used at the production facility to confirm the stability of equipment and production workflows, representing one of the common process validation methods widely adopted in the food manufacturing industry. The colorant applied to these validation chips fully complies with the relevant requirements of GB2760 "National Food Safety Standard for the Use of Food Additives", and does not pose any risk to food safety or product quality. The consumer stated that Lay's had provided them with the corresponding analytical report, which confirms the accuracy of the official explanation. The report cannot be made public as it contains additional proprietary product information. At present, both of their demands have been fully addressed: they have received the official situation explanation, and obtained a full refund for the bag of potato chips. (JiEMIAN News) 

Tracking WAIC

Xi Jinping Announces Major Chinese Initiatives to Support Global AI Development

President Xi Jinping of the People's Republic of China attended the opening ceremony of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and the High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance at the Shanghai World Reception Hall, where he delivered a keynote speech. Xi Jinping noted that through the concerted efforts of all parties, the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization has been established in Shanghai. This represents a major initiative by China to respond to the calls from the Global South, rally the international community to actively advance AI development and governance, and will stand as a significant milestone in the history of artificial intelligence progress. Xi Jinping announced that to further support global artificial intelligence development and advance global AI capacity building, over the next five years, China will provide 5,000 specialized AI training slots for developing countries; build international AI application cooperation centers targeting ASEAN, the Arab League, the African Union, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and BRICS nations; and promote the implementation of the intelligent meteorological early warning system "Mazu" across 30 countries, to safeguard the well-being of countless households and ensure peace and stability across the world. (Xinhua News Agency)

Ant Group Unveils Three-Tier AI Framework for Agent-Driven Commerce at WAIC

On July 17, Ant Group showcased its three-tier AI framework tailored for the agent-driven commerce era at WAIC 2026, comprising the AI application layer, the agent business ecosystem layer, and the technology infrastructure layer. At the application layer, the health AI "Afu" has surpassed 100 million users, handling over 10 million health consultations daily; the AI-powered version of Alipay, "Abao", has been launched for public beta testing. In terms of the agent business ecosystem, AI payment has supported 300 million agent-based transactions, and is compatible with 95% of general agent frameworks. Regarding the technology infrastructure, Ant demonstrated advancements including the Bailian large language model, the embodied intelligent products from Lingbo Technology, the OceanBase AI database, and its secure and trusted technological capabilities.

Sugon 8000 Unveiled at WAIC 2026, Achieving a 20-Fold Increase in Computing Power Density per Single Compute Unit

36Kr learned that on July 17, Sugon 8000 (Dengfeng) made its first public debut in physical form at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, and was selected as one of the conference's "Exhibition Highlights". Adopting an ultra-intelligent converged architecture, the system supports full-precision computing ranging from FP64 to INT8, delivering a 20-fold increase in computing power density per single compute unit. Its self-developed scaleFabric interconnection technology enables stable interconnection at a scale of 100,000 accelerator cards. The system has completed adaptation for over 300 key applications, covering more than 20 scientific research and industrial fields.

NetEase Lingdong Showcases Its Original "Human-Machine Hybrid Team" Technology at 2026 WAIC

36Kr learned that the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) kicked off on July 17. NetEase Lingdong, NetEase's embodied AI brand focused on the construction machinery sector, brought its futuristic "intelligent cockpit" to the exhibition area. Through the cockpit, on-site staff can remotely control frontline production equipment at real power plants and ports thousands of miles away. Meanwhile, NetEase Lingdong also presented its latest achievements in the large-scale implementation of embodied AI in high-risk scenarios, as well as self-developed technologies including "human-machine hybrid team", "lights-off construction site" and "one operator managing multiple machines".

National Supercomputing Internet Launches Scientific Agent Co-Creation Initiative

36Kr learned that on July 17, during the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), the "Scientific Computing Agent Ecosystem Co-Creation and Developer Recruitment Cooperation Program" launched by the National Supercomputing Internet has drawn widespread attention from the industry. This six-month initiative widely calls for innovative outputs including agents, scientific research models, MCP tools, and Ski from universities, research institutes, individual developers, and enterprise R&D teams, to build an open and collaborative scientific intelligence ecosystem.

Qwen Unveils Its First AI Agent Headset at WAIC

36Kr learned that on the first day of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, Qwen's first AI agent headset made its official debut. It is reported that the headset adopts an all-day wearable earclip design, integrates the capabilities of the Qwen AI assistant, supports features such as simultaneous interpretation, meeting minutes, and health records, delivering a more natural AI interaction experience.

GlimCore Unveils Its Newly Self-Developed Edge High-Computing 3D-Stacked Near-Memory Processing Inference Chip at WAIC

From July 17 to 20, 2026, GlimCore presented at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, globally debuting the TC1000 series of edge high-computing 3D-stacked near-memory processing inference chips. Leveraging its self-developed 3D-stacked near-memory processing and integrated memory-computing architecture, the chip breaks through the "memory wall" bottleneck, delivering a 10-fold increase in equivalent bandwidth while consuming only 1/3 the power of traditional solutions. It supports ultra-high-speed inference of 300 tokens per second for 3B models and high-performance operation of 35B models. GlimCore has established in-depth cooperation with Lenovo to jointly promote the implementation of edge inference products and solutions for next-generation AI PC, AI Cube, all-in-one devices and other related offerings.

Cutting-Edge AI Insights

MoonShot Officially Launches Open-Source Model Kimi K3

36Kr learned that on July 17, MoonShot officially released Kimi K3. Kimi K3 is a 2.8-trillion-parameter model built on the Kimi Delta Attention (KDA) mixed linear attention mechanism and Attention Residuals technology, with native support for visual understanding and a 1 million-token context window. It is the world's first open-source model at the 3-trillion-parameter level, designed for cutting-edge intelligent scenarios such as long-horizon programming, knowledge work, and reasoning.

Google Reportedly Delays Gemini 3.5 Pro Launch to Further Refine Model's Coding Capabilities

People familiar with the matter revealed that the release of Google's most powerful flagship AI model Gemini 3.5 Pro has been postponed for several months from the original schedule, as the company has invested more time in enhancing the model's capabilities, especially its coding performance. According to disclosures from 10 current and former employees, the delayed launch of Gemini 3.5 Pro has sparked dissatisfaction among Google's engineers, AI researchers and management. They worry that as Anthropic and OpenAI successively roll out models with performance exceeding that of Gemini, Google may lose its leading position in the market. (Sina Finance)

Microsoft CEO Criticizes Anthropic for Overly Strict Content Moderation on Fable Model

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on Wednesday that Anthropic's imposition of various restrictions on queries submitted by users to its high-end AI model Fable is unjustified. According to the transcript of Nadella's speech, he told the development engineers of Microsoft's Copilot AI tool: "If you have used Fable, you will find that it arbitrarily rejects all kinds of instructions. When have you ever seen a creative tool subject to such strict content moderation? It makes no sense at all." According to a technical support page, when end users ask Fable questions related to large-scale model construction or other topics, Anthropic sometimes invokes an older version of the model to generate responses. (Sina Finance)

Intel and Google Cloud Announce Deepened Strategic Cooperation

Intel and Google Cloud have announced the deepening of their multi-year strategic partnership, to accelerate Intel's company-wide digital transformation through the deployment of Gemini Enterprise and Google Cloud. Intel plans to apply advanced Gemini-powered generative AI to the daily work of its global employees, helping them scale up all capabilities, and enhance workflows in engineering, supply chain and enterprise operations. Google Cloud's highly scalable infrastructure will also enhance Intel's semiconductor development environment, introduce customized agent workflows, shorten chip design cycles, and improve cross-departmental collaboration efficiency. (Jiemian News)

Big Companies / Major Events

Zhipu's ARR Hits $1 Billion, Surging 15x in Half a Year

36Kr has learned from multiple independent sources that as of July 2026, Zhipu's Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) has reached $1 billion. Prior to press time, Zhipu did not respond to requests for comment on the information. According to insiders, Zhipu's ARR grew 15 times between January and July 2026. Zhipu officials have previously stated that the commercial value of large models can be framed as "Intelligence Ceiling × Token Consumption Scale" — as long as model capabilities maintain a leading edge, call volumes will keep growing. Financial reports show that in Q1 this year, GLM's API prices were raised by a cumulative ~83%, with overseas subscription prices nearly matching ClaudeCode, yet call volumes still rose by approximately 400%.

Choi Tae-won, Chairman of SK Group, Responds to Recent Stock Price Decline: Memory Chip Demand Will Support Long-Term Stock Price Growth

Choi Tae-won, Chairman of SK Group, believes that backed by the demand for memory chips, the stock price of SK Hynix will maintain a long-term upward trend. "The demand for memory chips is growing exponentially, which is why the stock prices of SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics have surged rapidly since last year," he stated at a forum hosted by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Friday. When asked about the recent stock price decline, he noted that stock prices usually rise along with market expectations, then experience a correction after a period of excessive rally. "I believe the demand for memory chips will continue to exist, so the stock price trend will show an upward trajectory over time," he said. (CLS)

Warren Buffett Slams the "Casino-ization" of the Stock Market Again

The "Oracle of Omaha" Warren Buffett recently made remarks, once again criticizing that the stock market is increasingly driven by speculative trading. On July 15, Warren Buffett slammed the stock market again in an interview with CNBC, stating that it is increasingly driven by speculative trading rather than focusing on long-term investment: "It is very hard to find anything of value when everyone feels like gambling." 

Since the beginning of this year, the US stock market has soared all the way to record highs, overcoming numerous concerns including the energy shock brought by the US-Iran conflict. Market skeptics argue that there is excessive speculation in stocks related to the development of artificial intelligence. "Sometimes opportunities come so fast that you can hardly believe them," Buffett said. "And sometimes you are lucky if you get one opportunity in a couple of years. We should always expect the latter to be the norm." (The Paper) 

FIFA: World Cup Champions to Receive Custom Rings with Unique Serial Numbers

In the early hours of July 17 Beijing time, FIFA officially announced that members of the 2026 FIFA World Cup winning team will receive custom championship rings, which will also be available for sale to fans worldwide. This marks the first time in World Cup history that championship rings are being awarded. A total of 2026 rings have been produced for this occasion, each engraved with a distinct unique serial number to pay tribute to the tournament. Thirty of these rings will be presented to the champion players and coaching staff, while the remaining 1996 rings will be sold globally as officially licensed merchandise, allowing supporters to own a unique piece of World Cup history.

Regarding the ring design, one side features the iconic FIFA World Cup Trophy, while the other side will be personalized according to the identity of the winning team. Each ring is custom-crafted and comes with a certificate of authenticity. After the final match concludes, the winning team's captain and head coach will first be presented with temporary commemorative rings, before all 30 official rings go through the personalization process and are formally awarded. (Yicai Global)

FIFA World Cup Championship Ring

Railway Authorities Launch 60-Day Advance Ticket Reservation Pilot Service

Reporters learned from the Passenger Transport Center of China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. on the 17th that starting from July 20, the railway authorities will launch a new train ticket reservation pilot service on over 200 trains of the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway and Beijing-Shanghai Railway. Passengers can submit reservation requests through the "Reserve Tickets" section of the 12306 mobile app between the 60th day and the 17th day before the train departs, and the 12306 system will fulfill the reservation orders between the 20th day and the 16th day before departure. The transition period runs from July 20 to August 29, during which tickets for September 15 and beyond can be reserved sequentially. Starting from August 30, passengers can regularly reserve tickets within the 60-day to 17-day window before train departure. (Yicai Global) 

Domestic refined oil prices to be raised on the evening of July 17

On July 17, the National Development and Reform Commission announced that starting from 24:00, the domestic gasoline and diesel prices will be increased by 300 yuan per ton and 290 yuan per ton respectively. Converted to per-liter prices, the price of No. 92 gasoline will rise by 0.24 yuan, No. 95 gasoline by 0.25 yuan, and No. 0 diesel by 0.25 yuan. The costs for residents' self-driving trips and daily commutes will increase accordingly. For example, private car owners will spend about 12 yuan more to fill up a 50L fuel tank at one time; in the logistics industry, taking a heavy-duty truck that travels 10,000 kilometers per month with a fuel consumption of 38L per 100 kilometers as an example, before the next price adjustment window opens, the fuel cost for a single vehicle will increase by around 443 yuan. After this round of price adjustment, the retail price of vehicle diesel in most regions of the country is 7.2-7.4 yuan per liter, and the maximum retail price limit for No. 92 gasoline is 7.2-7.3 yuan per liter. (Jiemian News)

Official Report on NFC Juice Adulteration Incident: Two Companies Under Investigation for Adulterated NFC Juice

On July 16, a reporter learned from the Food Safety Office of Luohe Municipal Government that in response to the widespread public concern sparked by the media report on July 14 that "multiple enterprises in Henan have been producing adulterated NFC juice", Luohe City launched an immediate response, and organized local government departments, market supervision authorities, and public security agencies on the very same day to conduct a thorough investigation and handling operation at 5 involved enterprises.

According to the local preliminary investigation, Henan Zanyang Beverage Co., Ltd. and Luohe Shennong Biotechnology Co., Ltd. are suspected of false labeling, and have been legally placed on file for investigation. The two enterprises have been ordered to immediately remove all non-compliant products from shelves and recall all such products. In-depth investigations are still ongoing for the remaining 3 enterprises, and once any illegal acts are verified, they will be dealt with strictly in accordance with relevant laws and regulations. (Henan Daily)

LVMH Boss Ordered to Pay Back Taxes of 174 Million Yuan

According to news on July 17, after a years-long legal dispute recently, Bernard Arnault, the richest man in France and head of LVMH, was ordered by French authorities to pay 22.5 million euros (approximately 174 million RMB) in back taxes.

A recent ruling from the Paris Administrative Court of Appeal shows that Arnault and his wife are required to pay the French authorities an "additional contribution" of 12.96 million euros for 2010, including taxes, social security contributions, surcharges, and late payment interest. In addition, the Arnault couple must also pay the French Wealth Solidarity Tax for the period from 2012 to 2015, totaling 9.5 million euros. Arnault's side responded to the media on July 4 that they will appeal the court ruling to the French Council of State. (Zhongxin Jingwei)

realme Suspends Operations in China

On July 16, Xu Qi, Vice President of realme and President of realme China, announced in a public statement that realme would suspend product updates in the Chinese market: realme is pressing the pause button on its China market operations. This decision was made after repeated careful consideration. Going forward, we will concentrate our resources on deep cultivation of overseas markets, focus on the performance and gaming segments, and bring leapfrog technologies to users around the world.

Regarding after-sales services, Xu Qi stated that the subsequent sales and after-sales warranty services for all existing realme device models will be fully taken over by the official OPPO team. As for system updates, after the next generation of ColorOS is released, realme users will be able to upgrade to the ColorOS system once they receive the corresponding update notification. (Yicai Global)

China's real estate market has entered the stock era

Data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development shows that in the first half of this year, the transaction volume of second-hand housing accounted for 50.4% of the total transaction volume of new and second-hand housing in China. In 18 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) including Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Guangdong, the transaction area of second-hand residential buildings exceeded that of newly built commercial residential buildings. This indicates that China's real estate market has transitioned from the incremental era to the stock era. (Dahe Finance Cube) 

Montage Technology Responds to South Korean Antitrust Investigation

Montage Technology announced that on July 15, the Fair Trade Investigation Division of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office in South Korea conducted an on-site search and evidence collection at the company's South Korean office regarding potential violations of antitrust-related laws and regulations. The company is fully cooperating with all investigation requirements of the prosecutors' office. As of the disclosure date of this announcement, neither the company nor its directors or employees have been accused of any misconduct by the prosecutors' office or any government authority. The company is operating normally at present, and will remain fully focused on product R&D and serving customers. (Jiemian News)

Equity ETF Reclaims Top Spot in Size

According to Choice data, as of July 16, the size of Huatai-PineBridge CSI 300 ETF reached 93.553 billion yuan, surpassing Yinhua Rili A to reclaim the top position in the entire market by ETF size. On July 16, the CSI 300 Index fell by 1.85%, but Huatai-PineBridge CSI 300 ETF bucked the trend to record a net capital inflow of 6.201 billion yuan, with its size increasing by 4.636 billion yuan compared to the previous day. Industry insiders analyzed that the current market continues to fluctuate, while some capital is taking the opportunity to buy the dip against the trend, pushing equity ETFs back to the top of the size rankings and sending out positive signals. In addition, sector rotation has accelerated at present and the main market trend remains unclear, so many funds are reluctant to bet on industry ETFs and prefer to make bargain-hunting layouts through broad-based ETFs. (CLS)

Top 10 Automaker Sales in H1 Announced: SAIC, BYD, Geely Take Top Three Spots

According to statistics and analysis from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, from January to June 2026, the top 10 automobile enterprises (groups) by sales volume collectively sold 12.649 million vehicles, accounting for 84.2% of the total automobile sales volume. Among the ten aforementioned enterprises, compared with the same period of last year, the sales volumes of Geely Holding, Chery Holding, GAC Group and Great Wall Motors increased by varying degrees, while the sales volumes of other enterprises decreased to different extents. (Jiemian News)

Leading Stock in A-Share Memory Sector Hits Two Consecutive Limit Downs

On the afternoon of July 17, the A-share technology sector accelerated its sharp decline. GigaDevice, the leading player in the memory chip industry, saw two consecutive limit downs. Its latest share price stood at 463.15 yuan, with a market capitalization of 324.9 billion yuan. The Hong Kong-listed shares of GigaDevice also plummeted by over 11% in tandem. Wind data shows that the number of shareholders of GigaDevice exceeds 240,000. (21st Century Business Herald)

With the World Cup final approaching, multiple companies announce: Holiday next Monday

On July 16, the social media account "adidas Football" under adidas released a screenshot of an email, which stated: "To ensure every colleague can fully enjoy the World Cup final, except for essential work meetings, the company has decided to grant all office employees a special one-day holiday on July 20 (next Monday). Let's all focus on the pitch and cheer for the epic showdown between Spain and Argentina at 3 a.m. on July 20." Later, adidas Sports (China) Co., Ltd. reposted the announcement with the message "If you don't come to work, then I won't either"; on the same day, Lingxi Games released a statement announcing "all staff get the morning of Monday off"; on July 15, NetEase announced that all its employees would have a half-day holiday on the morning of Monday, July 20, to fully relish the final night. (China Newsweek)

The three major U.S. stock indexes closed lower collectively, with large-cap tech stocks broadly declining

The three major U.S. stock indexes closed down across the board: the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.77%, posting a cumulative weekly drop of 0.93%; the Nasdaq declined 1.4%, with a total weekly loss of 2.9%; the S&P 500 Index dropped 1.01%, notching a cumulative weekly decrease of 1.55%.

Large-cap technology stocks broadly trended lower: SpaceX fell more than 5%, while NVIDIA, Meta, Tesla, and Google all dropped over 2%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index closed 1.63% lower, down 20.2% from its all-time high set on June 22, entering a technical bear market. Memory chip-related stocks opened lower but moved higher to close with a modest gain: Seagate Technology rose over 5%, Western Digital gained more than 2%, SK Hynix increased over 1%, while SanDisk fell more than 4%. Sectors including semiconductor equipment and materials, aviation services, and cryptocurrency concepts trended downward. (JIEMIAN NEWS)

IPO in Progress

As IPO Looms, Anthropic Reportedly Plans to Hold Investor Meetings in Weeks

On July 16, it was reported that Anthropic is arranging meetings with investors to prepare for a potential large-scale initial public offering. The underwriting banks in charge of this IPO will arrange meetings between investors and the developer of the Claude chatbot in the coming weeks. Anthropic could launch its IPO as early as October. After completing a financing round in May, Anthropic reached a valuation of $965 billion, surpassing OpenAI for the first time to become one of the world's most valuable unlisted companies. (Jiemian News)

Zhongji Xuchuang Passes HKEX Listing Hearing

On July 17, according to documents from the HKEX Disclosure Portal, Zhongji Xuchuang (300308.SZ), the leading A-share optical module manufacturer, has successfully passed the listing hearing for its Hong Kong share offering, advancing its A+H dual-listing layout. This offering is jointly sponsored by China International Capital Corporation, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and other institutions, with a maximum estimated fundraising of 7 billion US dollars, which is expected to become a large-scale tech IPO on the Hong Kong stock market this year. (Times Finance APP) 

Yuanji Food Group Co., Ltd. Obtains CSRC Filing for Hong Kong Stock IPO

36Kr learned that the International Cooperation Department of the China Securities Regulatory Commission has issued the filing notice for the "full circulation" of overseas offering and listing and domestically unlisted shares of Yuanji Food Group Co., Ltd. The company plans to issue no more than 23,824,000 overseas-listed ordinary shares and list them on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. The company's 20 shareholders plan to convert a total of 82,176,253 domestically unlisted shares they hold into overseas-listed shares for trading on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. 

Cool Products

Apple reportedly to launch OLED iPad mini as early as this fall, with entry-level model and iPad Air updates scheduled for next year

On July 16 local time, technology journalist Mark Gurman published an article stating that Apple is preparing to roll out the most significant upgrade to the iPad mini in five years, with a launch as early as this fall and availability starting in October. The new iPad mini, codenamed J510, will feature an OLED display for the first time to enhance visual performance. Meanwhile, Apple also plans to update the entry-level iPad (codenamed J581) and the 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Air (codenamed J807 and J837) next year, where the entry-level model will mainly receive a processor upgrade, while the iPad Air is expected to be unveiled in spring. Apple is projected to launch its first foldable iPhone alongside new Apple Watch devices and other products this September, and raised prices for multiple product lines including the iPad series last month. (The Paper)

Edited｜Wang Yixuan