Krypton Evening News | It is reported that Intel sought approval from the US government before issuing an additional $20 billion in new shares; the cumulative turnover of China's futures market in the first seven months increased by 38.43% year-on-year; having exceeded 1 million units for two consecutive months, China's automobile exports continue to maintain a strong growth momentum.
Big Companies:
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are expected to unveil their largest-ever shareholder return plans at the end of this month. As the artificial intelligence (AI) driven memory chip super cycle has significantly boosted the cash generation capacity of the two companies, the market is even discussing that the total scale of their shareholder returns, including special dividends, share repurchases and cancellations, may exceed 200 trillion won.
Recently, the incident that Fujian Provincial Government Service App Unified Platform (abbreviated as "Minzhengtong App") was counterfeited in the Apple App Store has sparked online attention. After inquiry, the counterfeit app is named "Minzhengtong" (with different Chinese characters but similar pronunciation), and its download page still labels itself as a "government convenience service application". At present, this app can only be found in the Apple App Store, and no such application has been found in the app stores of some Android mobile phone brands. In response, the official of Minzhengtong App stated that the company has reported the relevant situation, and the relevant departments are coordinating the handling. Meanwhile, the public can also directly report the app in the Apple App Store.
Intel reportedly sought US government approval before $20 billion share offering
On local time August 11, Intel announced that the public offering of its common stock is priced at $95 per share, with a total of 210526315 common shares issued, expanding the offering size from the previously announced $15 billion to $20 billion. According to reports, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan called US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to seek approval before the company's share issuance. The US government ultimately decided not to participate in the share offering.
According to South Korean media reports, Samsung Electronics has confirmed the introduction of Anthropic's large language model Claude, which has significantly shortened the cycle of some semiconductor design and verification. Only about three months after opening Claude's AI programming tool Claude Code to software developers first, reports show that the frontline development teams have achieved significant efficiency improvements. In the verification work of customer custom SoCs, tasks that were originally expected to take more than a month were completed in only two days. Internal assessments show that work efficiency has increased by about 15 times.
C919's first international route is officially launched
At around 15:00 on August 12, the Air China flight CA723 operated by the domestically developed large aircraft C919 took off from Beijing Capital International Airport for Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, marking the official launch of C919's first international route. At present, Air China has operated 12 C919 passenger aircraft, opened routes from Beijing to Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Harbin, Chongqing and other destinations, completed more than 12,000 flights, and safely transported over 1.62 million passengers.
New Products:
Alibaba Cloud launches Agent competition platform "Qwen AI Arena"
36Kr learned that on August 12, Alibaba's Qwen AI platform officially launched "Qwen AI Arena", a challenge and evaluation platform for AI Agents, which continuously generates challenge tasks from real business scenarios, provides developers with models, operating environments and evaluation capabilities, and collects and verifies Agent solutions that can solve practical problems. The first task initiated by AI Arena is jointly launched by Qwen AI platform and Aidge, focusing on real problems in the cross-border e-commerce product listing scenario.
SpaceXAI launches "all-weather digital colleague" Grok Bot
SpaceXAI announced the launch of the AI agent product Grok Bot on local time August 11, which is currently in the testing phase. The statement said that Grok Bot is a team of all-weather online intelligent assistants that can accept and complete practical work tasks assigned by users. According to the introduction, Grok Bot has an independent cloud computer, which can log in to the tools that users are already using, work across applications, inboxes and other scenarios, and return to report after the task is completed. Elon Musk posted on the social media platform X: "We will expand the testing scale of Grok Bot after fixing the basic problems in the early test and releasing Grok 4.6 later this week."
Investment and Financing:
The price per gram of gold jewelry has surged by more than 100 yuan in one month
After a phased correction, the international spot gold has rebounded strongly recently, re-breaking through the $4400 per ounce mark, with a weekly increase of about 7%. As of 14:00 on August 12, it fell back slightly to $4391 per ounce. The domestic gold price has risen all the way from 878 yuan/gram at the beginning of August to 955 yuan/gram today, rising continuously by about 80 yuan/gram. The price of gold jewelry has also risen accordingly. As of August 12, the price per gram of domestic brand gold jewelry is approaching the 1330 yuan mark, with Chow Tai Fook's pure gold jewelry quoted at 1329 yuan/gram and Chow Sang Sang's pure gold jewelry at 1328 yuan/gram. The gold jewelry price hit a low point on July 14, when Chow Tai Fook's pure gold jewelry was quoted at 1217 yuan/gram and Chow Sang Sang's pure gold jewelry at 1214 yuan/gram. Calculated on this basis, the price per gram of gold jewelry has surged by more than 100 yuan in one month.
Temasek plans to invest in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix
According to people familiar with the matter, Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek plans to invest in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, and has contacted the South Korean government to discuss the investment timing. Sources said that Temasek plans to make the investment directly through its internal investment team rather than through external asset management firms.
Other Noteworthy News:
According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China's automobile exports performed well in July, maintaining a strong growth momentum. The latest released data shows that in July this year, automobile exports reached 1.043 million units, up 0.6% month on month and 81.3% year on year. Among them, new energy vehicle exports reached 553,000 units, up 5.7% month on month and 145.5% year on year. Reporters noted that after automobile exports exceeded 900,000 units for two consecutive months in April and May this year, exports reached a new level in June and July, exceeding 1 million units for two consecutive months. Moreover, the proportion of new energy vehicle exports has exceeded 50% for two consecutive months.
The total turnover of China's futures market in the first 7 months increased by 38.43% year on year
According to the China Futures Association, calculated on a unilateral basis, the total trading volume of the national futures market from January to July this year was 6.107 billion lots, with a total turnover of 568.98 trillion yuan, up 18.93% and 38.43% year on year respectively. Among them, the trading volume of the national futures market in July was 1.002 billion lots, with a turnover of 86.28 trillion yuan, down 5.31% and up 20.99% year on year respectively.
As of June this year, China's renewable energy hydrogen production capacity exceeds 1.4 million tons
The "China Hydrogen Energy Development Report (2026)" released by the National Energy Administration yesterday (11th) shows that as of June this year, the annual capacity of completed and under-construction renewable energy hydrogen production in China, with water electrolysis hydrogen production as the main route, has exceeded 1.4 million tons, and the hydrogen energy industry has made positive progress. At present, China's hydrogen energy infrastructure is under steady construction. As of June, a total of about 620 hydrogen refueling stations have been built across the country, and the length of the completed and operational pure hydrogen pipelines has exceeded 350 kilometers.