8:1 36Kr | The chairman of Xingyu apologized for terminating employment contracts with fresh graduates; A single winning subscription lot may bring a profit of 280,000 yuan, and the winning rate of Enflame Technology's new share offering has been announced; The compensation package of Apple's new CEO has been unveiled, which is slightly higher than that of his predecessor Tim Cook.

Today's Hotspot Guide

• Zhipu has opened its official flagship store on Tmall, marking the official launch of retail subscriptions for large model tokens
• WeChat is conducting gray-scale tests on a new anti-miss feature
• OpenAI officially unveiled its next-generation model, which can independently identify vulnerabilities and launch attacks
• Dreame responded to the statement that it will abandon mass production of complete vehicles
• Minimax has become the new favorite of mainland investors, with its purchase volume through the Hong Kong Stock Connect exceeding that of Alibaba and Tencent
• The Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to the absence of a communique issued at the G20 Finance Ministers' Meeting

TOP 3 Major News

Chairman of Xingyu Co., Ltd. Responds to "Terminating Employment Contracts with New Graduates": Relevant Measures Are Being Properly Implemented Under the Guidance of Government Departments

On September 2, Xingyu Co., Ltd. held an online performance briefing. When responding to the public opinions related to the recent employment incident, Zhou Xiaoping, Chairman and General Manager of Xingyu Co., Ltd., said that the company pays high attention to the recent public opinions, has publicly released an apology letter for the real situation of the incident, and is properly implementing relevant measures under the guidance of government departments. "The company expresses its heartfelt thanks to the supervision of the media that disclosed the real situation. The company has carried out profound self-reflection and made a sincere apology. Meanwhile, the company has filed complaints and reports against the false reports from some media through the cyberspace administration and network security authorities to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the company," she noted. (CLS)

You may earn 280,000 yuan for one winning lot, Enflame Technology announces the new share lottery winning rate

On September 2, Enflame Technology disclosed the online subscription status and lottery winning rate for its initial public offering of shares and listing on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board. The total number of shares to be issued in this offering is 43,035,173, with the issue price set at 142.18 yuan per share. There are 7,032,045 valid online subscription accounts, and the total number of valid subscribed shares reaches 42.066 billion. As the initial valid online subscription multiple exceeds 100 times, the claw-back mechanism is activated, transferring 3.443 million shares from the offline tranche to the online tranche. After the claw-back, the final number of shares issued online is 10,328,500, and the final lottery winning rate is 0.02455315%.

It is understood that Enflame Technology, together with Moore Threads, Muxi Co., Ltd. and Biren Technology, are collectively called the "Four Little Dragons of Domestic GPUs" with similar main businesses and operation modes. Moore Threads and Muxi Co., Ltd. have been listed on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board successively, and their closing price increases on the first trading day of listing exceeded 425% and 692% respectively. If the price increase of Enflame Technology on the first listing day exceeds 400%, the floating profit for one winning lot will exceed 280,000 yuan. (Sina Finance, Jiemian News)

Compensation of Apple's new CEO announced, slightly higher than his predecessor Tim Cook

Apple Inc. plans to pay its new Chief Executive Officer John Ternus an annual base salary of 3 million US dollars, plus a target annual stock award of 55 million US dollars for the 2027 fiscal year which starts at the end of September 2026. Compared with Tim Cook's compensation, John Ternus's pay has a slight increase. In the 2025 fiscal year, Tim Cook had a base annual salary of 3 million US dollars and a stock award of 50 million US dollars, but he finally received an actual total compensation of about 74.3 million US dollars. Apart from the base annual salary and stock award, he also got 12 million US dollars in non-equity incentive compensation and 1.76 million US dollars in other compensation. Apple's official X account has unfollowed Tim Cook and only follows this new CEO John Ternus at present. (The Paper)

AI Frontier

OpenAI Officially Unveils Its Next-Generation Model: Capable of Identifying Vulnerabilities and Launching Attacks Independently

On September 1 local time, OpenAI released an announcement stating that it plans to launch Astra, its next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) model "as soon as possible". However, since this model is the first AI model that has reached the capability threshold of "Critical" cybersecurity, the company will limit its scope of use. OpenAI indicated that the new-generation AI model Astra can discover previously unknown security vulnerabilities, and exploit these vulnerabilities to launch attacks without step-by-step guidance from humans. Judging from the test results released so far, Astra's cyberattack capability is already fairly prominent. OpenAI noted that Astra got a full score in the ExploitBench test, which is mainly designed to assess the capability of large language models to exploit known system vulnerabilities to launch attacks. (Guancha.cn)

Google Launches the Gemini 3.8 Flash Series

Google has officially rolled out Gemini 3.8 Flash, as well as Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber dedicated to cybersecurity scenarios, which is the third Flash-version model released by Google within six weeks.

This model has an input cost of $0.75 per million Tokens, an output cost of $3.75 per million Tokens, a single-task cost of $0.58, and a generation speed up to 305 tokens/s. It scores 59 points in the benchmark intelligence index test, has prominent coding capability, achieves a 73.7% result in the DeepSWE v1.1 software engineering test, and its overall performance is close to that of flagship models including GPT‑5.6 Sol and Opus 5. Relying on its low-cost advantage, the model can complete complex tasks through multiple rounds of internal iterative reflection. The dedicated security version Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber takes a substantial lead in vulnerability mining capability, which can detect high-risk vulnerabilities within two hours in actual tests. This version is not fully open-source to the public, and is only open to trusted institutions. (AI Era)

Nvidia Plans to Acquire Hugging Face for $14 Billion

According to news on September 2, Nvidia is in-depth negotiations to acquire open-source AI platform Hugging Face for nearly 14 billion US dollars. If the transaction is completed, it will become the largest acquisition in the global AI sector in 2025. The transaction includes $12.9 billion in cash consideration and $1 billion in retention incentives for core employees. The terms still have room for adjustment and may be finalized this week. At present, neither party has made an official announcement or comment.

Known as "GitHub in the AI industry", Hugging Face has more than 13 million global developers and 3 million open-source AI models. It is a core distribution platform for mainstream models at home and abroad, with an annualized revenue of about 150 million US dollars. Nvidia participated in its Series D financing back in 2023, and the acquisition offer this time is nearly three times higher than the valuation at that time. (Jiemian News)

Tencent WorkBuddy Announces the Launch of Its Open Platform, Fully Opening Up Underlying Agent Foundation Capabilities

36Kr has learned that Tencent WorkBuddy has officially launched its open platform, introducing more than 100 ecological partners in the first batch, and opening underlying Agent capabilities to smart hardware vendors, industry application developers and other relevant parties. At the launch event, 9 co-branded smart hardware products made their debut, with partners including Plaud, Rokid, Insta360, iFLYTEK, Anker, Moma, JD Jingzao and other brands; more than 30 industry applications are connected to the platform simultaneously, covering over 20 sectors including finance, law, medical care, education, public welfare and more.

Kimi API has initially supported Codex and Claude Code

On September 2, Moonshot AI announced that to meet users' demands for accessing Kimi API in Codex and Claude Code, Kimi API now supports the Responses API format of OpenAI, as well as the Messages API format of Anthropic. Users who use Codex or Claude Code can directly connect to models including kimi-k3, kimi-k2.7-code-highspeed, kimi-k2.7-code, kimi-k2.6 and other models via custom model providers by adopting format conversion or local proxy. (Jiemian News)

Musk Preannounced the Release of Grok 4.7 Model in 10 Days

Elon Musk posted a tweet on the X platform, announcing that the Grok 4.7 model will be released in 10 days. The Grok 4.7 model has a parameter scale of 2.1 trillion, marking a 40% increase compared with Grok 4.6 (1.5 trillion). (Sina Finance)

Big Companies / Major Events

Zhipu AI Opens Flagship Store on Tmall, Officially Launches Retail of Large Model Token Subscription Services

On September 2, Zhipu AI launched its official flagship store on Tmall, officially rolling out the GLM Coding Plan series of subscription packages to provide retail AI programming services for individual users and small and medium-sized teams, supporting monthly, quarterly and annual subscriptions. The prices of the packages have been raised significantly: the monthly fee for the Pro version has increased from 149 yuan to 538 yuan, with a growth rate up to 3.6 times. The new version is upgraded to the GLM-5.3 model, adopts point-based billing, is compatible with more than 20 programming tools and provides API calling services. This entry marks that domestic large model manufacturers have officially launched the popularized Token retail model. Zhipu AI is accelerating its commercial transformation, shifting from customized project services to standardized subscription services, and its API business has become the core revenue pillar. (Jiemian News)

Dreame Responds to Abandoning Mass Production of Complete Vehicles

On September 1, Dreame Technology officially responded to the adjustments of its automobile manufacturing business, confirming the termination of the "Star Sky Project" full-vehicle mass production program. The entire automobile business will be integrated into the Industrial Research Institute, only retaining the underlying technical reserves such as motors and chassis control, and will no longer advance commercial mass production. The relevant technologies will be reused in core tracks including smart mobility and embodied intelligence. This is an active strategic correction made by the company. Dreame has integrated more than 200 previous business units into four core businesses, namely smart home, outdoor yard, smart mobility and embodied intelligence, and simultaneously shrunk and shut down a number of cross-border incubation projects such as the overlapping business of the MOVA brand and mobile phone business, to concentrate resources to consolidate its core main businesses. Dreame said that it will properly handle the supplier contracts and payment matters, and set up a special handling mechanism. This adjustment aims to optimize resource allocation and reduce the consumption brought by diversified expansion. However, subsequent issues such as supply chain recovery and internal organization adaptation still need to be resolved, and the effect of the transformation remains to be tested by the market. (National Business Daily)

Honda China Responds After Reports of Demanding Suppliers to Slash Prices Sharply

On September 2, it was reported that Honda had issued instructions to its suppliers, requiring them to make significant price cuts. Honda plans to reduce the cost of some key components by 30%, including components related to software-defined vehicles. In response, Honda China stated: "This is not content officially released by Honda. Regarding cost optimization activities, Honda has been committed to joint innovation and cooperation with suppliers and continuously carries out relevant work to enhance its competitiveness in global R&D, production, procurement and other fields." (Yicai)

ByteDance Raises Option Prices by Around 5%

ByteDance has issued a notice to adjust the option price, with the price for current employees adjusted from $229.5 per share to $241.35 per share, representing an increase of approximately 5.1%. This is ByteDance's second adjustment to option prices since 2026. The previous adjustment to ByteDance's option prices took place in April this year, when the price for current employees was adjusted from $200.41 per share to $229.5 per share. (Sina Tech)

Minimax has become the new favorite of mainland investors, with its purchase scale via the Hong Kong Stock Connect surpassing that of Alibaba and Tencent

Minimax Group Inc. was the most favored Hong Kong stock by mainland investors last month, which is the latest sign showing mainland investors' strong investment enthusiasm for China's new generation of artificial intelligence (AI) model developers. In August, mainland investors purchased Minimax shares worth 10.6 billion Hong Kong dollars through the Hong Kong Stock Connect, exceeding the purchase amount of Alibaba and Tencent Holdings. Since it was included in the Hong Kong Stock Connect on August 6, southbound investors have held a total of 9.7% of the shares of this AI startup. (Sina Finance)

WeChat Conducts Gray Test for New Anti-Miss Function

On September 2, according to the official WeChat account WeChat Pai, the new version of WeChat has added two new features. 1. If there are unread messages in WeChat, long press the "WeChat" button at the lower left corner to view all current unread chats. It is reported that this feature is currently in the gray test stage. 2. If there are unclaimed red envelopes and transfers in the chat, "Red Envelope" and "Transfer" reminders will appear at the upper right corner of the chat box. (Cover News, Dahe Daily)

PwC: Global capital expenditure on data centers may reach $31.6 trillion from 2026 to 2050

PwC estimates that between 2026 and 2050, the global capital expenditure on data centers will likely reach $31.6 trillion. If the popularization of artificial intelligence accelerates, the potential increment can even hit $50 trillion. This data is based on information from the consulting firm Oxford Economics, which has modeled the capital expenditure of data centers in 36 countries and regions as well as five major regions. The report from PwC states that unlike the development of railways or the internet, the construction cycle of artificial intelligence infrastructure resets every four to six years. The analysis shows that even when inflation factors are taken into consideration, the expected expenditure on artificial intelligence will exceed the total cost of railway expansion in the United States and the United Kingdom as well as the internet construction cost. (Yicai)

The EU Sends Information Investigation Requests to More Than 30 AI-Related Enterprises for the First Time

The European Commission announced on September 2 that it has sent information investigation requests to more than 30 enterprises operating in the artificial intelligence industry in accordance with the Artificial Intelligence Act, which marks the first official law enforcement action since the enforcement power of the act came into force on August 2, 2026.

This round of information requests mainly involves two core issues: the safety of artificial intelligence systems and copyright compliance, which is a preliminary step before the official launch of the investigation. Thomas Reiniger, spokesperson for the European Commission, confirmed that the questionnaire is mainly centered on security and copyright, and the involved enterprises are distributed in many countries and regions around the world. Enterprises that receive the requests and submit incorrect, incomplete or misleading responses may face a fine of up to 15 million euros or 3% of their global annual turnover. (Reported by CGTN)

South Korea is reported to have purchased around 20 billion U.S. dollars of funds repatriated by SK Hynix after its U.S. listing

According to reports, after SK Hynix issued US$26.5 billion worth of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) in July, South Korean foreign exchange authorities purchased approximately US$20 billion of the funds repatriated by SK Hynix. People familiar with the matter said that during the process of SK Hynix repatriating U.S. dollars to South Korea, the South Korean Foreign Exchange Stabilization Fund purchased foreign exchange through over-the-counter transactions. (Jiemian News)

The Trump family targets the new promising business track: the venture capital firm under Donald Trump Jr. has become a major shareholder of Polymarket

1789 Capital, a venture capital firm under Donald Trump Jr., son of U.S. President Trump, is leading the new round of financing for the prediction market platform Polymarket, with an expected investment of about 300 million US dollars. It will soon become one of the largest investors of Polymarket, and the valuation of this round reaches 21 billion US dollars. (CLS)

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Responds to No Communique Issued at G20 Finance Ministers' Meeting

On September 2, Guo Jiakun, Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responded to the failure of the recent G20 Meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors to release a communique. The meeting held from August 31 to September 1 did not issue a final meeting communique due to differences among all parties on relevant issues.

The Chinese side stated that since the United States assumed the rotating presidency of the G20 in 2026, China has always participated in discussions on various topics in an active and constructive manner, helped the G20 deliver practical outcomes, and expressed deep regret over the failure of this meeting to issue a communique.

The Chinese side emphasized that the G20 should abide by the principles of consensus through consultation and equal participation, and coordinate global economic issues in an objective and balanced manner. The Chinese side expects the US side and all members to respect the reasonable concerns of all parties, jointly promote the 2026 G20 Miami Summit to achieve positive results, and continue to contribute to global economic governance and growth. (CCTV News, The Financial Associated Press)

The price of AI inference calls has plummeted, and the industry is ushering in a phase of "price-cutting involution"

According to reports on September 2, the usage price of AI has seen a sharp slump. The latest industry data shows that the unit price index of AI calls has hit a record low, nearly halved compared with the peak in this summer, and the current cost for individual users and enterprises to use large models has dropped significantly.

This round of AI price cuts originates from fierce involution in the industry. High cost-effective domestic AI models such as Kimi have quickly gained a foothold in the market, and their low-price advantages have forced overseas giants including OpenAI to follow up with price reductions. Combined with the declining production cost of AI and flexible price adjustment of platforms, the usage price of the whole industry has been further lowered.

This price drop benefits ordinary users, but greatly squeezes the profits of AI enterprises. The industry is facing an obvious dilemma of "increasing revenue without increasing profit", which also sharply raises the profitability pressure of OpenAI and Anthropic that are preparing for listing. Industry insiders pointed out that the era when the AI industry simply competed on model performance has ended, and the competition will turn to differentiated tracks in the future. (CLS)

Nestle Sells 7 Health Supplement Brands for 1 Billion US Dollars

On September 2, Nestlé Group announced that it would sell its mainstream vitamins, minerals and supplements (VMS) business covering 7 brands at the consideration of 1 billion US dollars. According to the announcement, this transaction involves seven mature brands: Nature's Bounty, Osteo Bi-Flex, Ester-C, Gard, Nuun, Puritan's Pride and Sisu, as well as the related private-label supplement business in the United States, including exclusive manufacturing, packaging, warehousing and distribution operation facilities. The business is mainly located in the United States, and also has presence in many countries including Canada and China. The transaction is subject to the approval of relevant regulatory authorities and is expected to be completed in the first half of 2027. The acquirer is Yellow Wood Partners, a private equity firm headquartered in Boston, the United States that focuses on the consumer industry. (Jiemian News)

Author of *Rich Dad Poor Dad* Reveals He Is $1.2 Billion in Debt

Robert Kiyosaki, the author of the bestseller *Rich Dad Poor Dad*, has recently drawn widespread attention after claiming that he is "1.2 billion US dollars in debt". However, his ex-wife and long-term business partner Kim Kiyosaki stated that this figure does not refer to the personal debt borne by Kiyosaki, but the total debt of the real estate projects he co-owns with his partners. Kim Kiyosaki noted that the $1.2 billion is the total debt undertaken by a group of real estate investors, rather than the loans owed by Kiyosaki individually. She explained that Kiyosaki and his partners hold around 1,500 apartments, so "strictly speaking, we do have that much debt", but these loans are linked to corresponding real estate assets, and the share of the debt borne by Kiyosaki himself is much smaller. (CLS)

The "Yizhongtian" concept stocks plunged collectively, and the market capitalization of Innolight fell below 1 trillion yuan

On the morning of September 2, the "Yizhongtian" concept stocks saw a collective slump, with Eoptolink, Innolight and TFC Communication all down more than 5% during intraday trading, and the total market value of Innolight fell below 1 trillion yuan. By the close of the afternoon session, the decline of the "Yizhongtian" concept stocks narrowed to a certain extent: Eoptolink fell 4.00%; TFC Communication once turned positive before closing 0.70% lower; Innolight dropped 4.29%, with the latest market capitalization standing at 970.9 billion yuan. (21st Century Business Herald)

Abel Confirms Buffett Led Berkshire's Investment in Alphabet

Greg Abel, Chief Executive Officer of Berkshire Hathaway, confirmed that Warren Buffett led Berkshire's investment in Alphabet. Berkshire's bet on Alphabet is driven by the company's strengths in artificial intelligence. Abel believes that artificial intelligence data centers represent a major opportunity for Berkshire Hathaway Energy. (The Financial Associated Press)

The three major U.S. stock indexes closed higher collectively, with Nvidia up more than 3%

36Kr learned that at the close of trading on September 2, the three major U.S. stock indexes rose across the board: the Nasdaq rose 0.45%, the S&P 500 rose 0.46%, and the Dow Jones rose 0.56%. Most large-cap technology stocks went up: Nvidia surged more than 3%, Meta gained over 2%, Google, Tesla and Amazon recorded slight increases, while Microsoft and Apple saw minor declines. Most popular Chinese concept stocks in the U.S. fell broadly: NIO dropped nearly 5%, Bilibili fell more than 2%, Pinduoduo declined by over 1%, XPeng Group, Baidu, NetEase and JD posted slight drops, and Li Auto rose 0.92%.

BlackRock invests in cybersecurity startup Huskeys to defend against malicious AI traffic

BlackRock has placed an early bet on Huskeys, a fledgling cybersecurity firm. The company has developed an AI gateway protection system to help enterprises address various risks brought by the increasingly rampant automated network traffic. BlackRock Innovation Investments, the early-stage venture capital arm under BlackRock, led the $27 million Series A financing. This one-year-old company has a post-money valuation of over $100 million. According to representatives from Huskeys, after the completion of this transaction, BlackRock has become the second-largest external investor of the company, second only to Israeli venture capital firm 10D. (Sina Finance)

IPO in Progress

Tianmu Pilot Launches IPO Tutoring

36Kr learned from the disclosure on the official website of China Securities Regulatory Commission that Liyang Tianmu Pilot Battery Materials Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Tianmu Pilot") completed the tutoring filing registration at Jiangsu Securities Regulatory Bureau on September 1, 2026, and plans to conduct initial public offering and listing, with CITIC Securities as the tutoring broker. The tutoring filing report shows that no single shareholder of the company holds more than 10% of the shares, and the company has no controlling shareholder. Luo Fei directly holds 2.34% of the shares, and controls a total of 19.08% of Tianmu Pilot's shares through shareholding platforms. Luo Fei directly and indirectly controls 21.42% of Tianmu Pilot's shares, who is the actual controller of the company.

Investment and Financing

"Dingxi Zhichuang" completes Pre-Series A financing of hundreds of millions of yuan

36Kr learned that Rhinovate™, an AI new material R&D company, has closed a Pre-Series A financing of hundreds of millions of yuan. This round of financing is led by CDH Baifu, with participation from Matrix Partners China, Binfu Capital, Loongson Venture Capital, Shunxi Fund and Zhongguancun Capital. The funds raised in this round will be mainly used for the R&D of RhinoMat foundational large model for materials science and underlying technologies, the construction of multi-scenario orchestratable AI agents and autonomous evolution laboratory system, as well as the scale-up verification of carbon-based high-performance materials, to continuously accumulate core technologies and experimental data.

"Tiangong Robotics" Completes Financing of Several Hundred Million Yuan

36Kr has learned that recently, Beijing Tianxia Xian Zhichuang Robot Technology Co., Ltd. (Tiangong Robotics) has secured a financing of several hundred million yuan. This financing round is led by Chuxin Fund, with follow-on investments from institutions including Matrix Partners China and Hefei State-owned Capital. The funds raised this round will be mainly used to expand the mass production scale of sorting robots, promote the R&D and commercial iteration of humanoid-based sorting robots, and expand overseas market business.

AI Startup Cognition Is Reportedly Planning to Raise Approximately 1 Billion U.S. Dollars, With a Valuation Reaching 47 Billion U.S. Dollars

According to reports, artificial intelligence startup Cognition is reportedly planning to raise approximately 1 billion U.S. dollars, with a valuation reaching 47 billion U.S. dollars. (Jiemian News)

"Heygo" completes its first round of multi-million US dollar angel financing

36Kr has learned that Heygo, a youth entrepreneurial team composed of former employees from ByteDance, DJI and Tencent, has completed its first round of multi-million US dollar angel financing, which is exclusively invested by Thick Snow Institution. Officially established in 2025, Heygo has previously launched an AI hardware product targeted at snowboarding.

Earnings Reports of Large Companies

Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway's attributable net profit for the first half of the year reaches 6.771 billion yuan

According to news on September 2, Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway disclosed its 2026 semi-annual report, with steadily growing performance and a profitability that strongly outpaces all major domestic airlines. In the first half of the year, it generated an operating revenue of 21.842 billion yuan, representing a 3.94% year-on-year increase. Both the attributable net profit and non-recurring gains and losses adjusted net profit amounted to 6.771 billion yuan, marking a 7.21% year-on-year growth, which is higher than Cathay Pacific's highest profit level of 6.243 billion Hong Kong dollars in the same period. In the second quarter when the aviation industry was hit hardest by oil prices, it recorded a net profit of 3.628 billion yuan, up 14.7% quarter on quarter compared to the first quarter.

The performance growth mainly benefits from rising passenger flow, upward ticket price adjustments and optimized financial expenses. Statistics show that the profit contribution of Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway far exceeds the total net profit of China State Railway Group in the first half of the year, making it the core profit pillar of China State Railway Group, while the rest of the group's railway businesses are in an overall loss. (Southern Metropolis Daily)

Cool Products

Dyson's new AI toothbrush is priced at 3,899 yuan and can capture images of dental plaque

Dyson has launched CameraJet, its first smart electric toothbrush with a built-in camera inside the brush head. It is priced at 499 US dollars, with the official China market price at 3,899 yuan, and is available in two color options: Ceramic Blue and Ceramic Pink. The brush head of CameraJet is equipped with a high-definition micro camera. After the captured images are analyzed by AI, the device can identify the distribution of dental plaque and gum status, and provide users with real-time cleaning guidance. By connecting to the matching mobile application, CameraJet can generate a personal oral health map for users, marking the areas that require focused cleaning. (IT Home)

Compiled｜Li Qi