Tech Express | October 17, 2026 — Global AI Trade Cools as China's STAR 50 Slumps Nearly 40%

1. Global AI Trade Cools as China's STAR 50 Slumps Nearly 40% This Half

Source: Lianhe Zaobao

Chinese companies may end up among the losers as the global artificial intelligence investment boom cools. Bloomberg reported that China's STAR 50 index has fallen nearly 40% so far in the second half of the year, making it the worst-performing major technology stock index in the world, while the ChiNext index, dominated by hardware shares, is down 36% over the same period.

Shares of Chinese chipmakers MetaX and Moore Threads have each lost about half their market value. Analysts said investors had earlier ignored lofty valuations, betting on Beijing's policy support and hoping to ride the global AI wave; as the market began to assess future demand and corporate earnings more cautiously, that enthusiasm faded and Chinese stocks were hit especially hard.

Leonid Mironov, a portfolio manager at research firm Gavekal Capital, said that if tech shares remain under pressure, it will be much harder for China to achieve its AI ambitions. He said a slump lasting more than six months would make corporate financing more difficult and signal that the market is not convinced by the technological progress achieved so far. Bloomberg Intelligence estimated that about 90 billion yuan flowed out through the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect in the third quarter, the largest outflow in a year and more than half of the April-June inflows.

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2. Taiwan Moves to Tighten AI Chip Exports to China as Beijing Plans 40-Technology Curbs

Source: Voice of America

Taiwan's economics minister Kung Ming-hsin said in a Bloomberg interview that Taiwan is preparing to tighten export controls on advanced AI chips and other cutting-edge technology destined for China, aligning with U.S. restrictions and jointly targeting the smuggling of advanced semiconductors into China. Bloomberg published the interview, conducted on Monday, on Friday, October 16.

Kung said Taiwan plans to add AI servers and advanced semiconductors to its export control list. Once implemented, exports or smuggling of controlled AI hardware to China would carry criminal liability under Taiwan's Trade Act. He did not give a timetable and said Taiwan's measures would remain consistent with the United States because of commitments made under the U.S.-Taiwan Agreement on Reciprocal Trade.

On the same day, China's Commerce Ministry and Science and Technology Ministry published a draft for public comment on revising the catalogue of technologies whose export is banned or restricted. The draft covers 40 technologies across AI, biomedicine, chips and solar power, with 14 to be banned and 26 restricted. Core technology for large AI models trained on data from sensitive countries would be banned from export, while AI agents used in defence and critical infrastructure and several AI processor and memory chip design technologies would be restricted. A Commerce Ministry spokesperson said the revision is routine work under technology trade management and does not target any specific country, region or entity.

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3. New DeepSeek Model Briefly Appears in Model List Before Being Pulled

Source: Mydrivers

A new model named "DeepSeek V4.1 Flash-1017" briefly appeared in DeepSeek's model list on October 17 before quickly disappearing, according to a Mydrivers report. The change was not limited to the name: the model's system fingerprint also changed, indicating that DeepSeek had prepared a genuine new model rather than simply mislabelling an existing one.

DeepSeek last updated its flagship model on September 10 with DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, only about a month earlier. The company usually waits at least two months between updates. DeepSeek also quietly updated its API documentation for search and scraping, charging per use at 5 yuan per 1,000 searches, and billing only when results are returned.

The report speculated that DeepSeek could release a refreshed V4.1 Flash, test a V4.1 Pro under the Flash name, or launch both. It also cautioned that, given the experience with V4 Pro-0813, users should not expect performance far beyond earlier models.

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4. Nasdaq Falls More Than 500 Points as Chip Index Drops for an Eighth Day

Source: Cailianshe

U.S. stocks closed lower, with the Dow down 0.34%, the Nasdaq down 2.14% or more than 500 points, and the S&P 500 down 1.09%, according to Cailianshe's October 17 morning briefing. Technology shares fell broadly: a storage index plunged 6.28% and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 3.83%, its eighth consecutive decline, with SanDisk, Western Digital and SK Hynix each down more than 6%.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang struck an optimistic tone about the AI market turmoil, saying "this too shall pass" and that the benefits of the technology would soon ease investors' concerns.

Oil prices jumped on geopolitical risk. WTI crude settled at $101.41 a barrel, up 3.51%, and Brent settled at $109.86, up 3.72%. COMEX gold rose 0.4% to $4,186.70 an ounce.

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5. Apple Says Foldable iPhone Preorder Demand Is 'Extraordinary'

Source: Sina Finance

Apple said demand for its new iPhone Duo has been "extraordinary." Just minutes after preorders opened on Friday, estimated shipping times had slipped to late January next year. In a statement, Apple said the iPhone Duo is its first foldable iPhone and that it is working to deliver the product as quickly as possible while continuing to accept online orders.

Consumers who opened Apple's online store on Friday morning found shipping estimates pushed to November; within minutes they slipped to December and then to late January. Both colours and all storage configurations from 256GB to 2TB were delayed. Apple did not say whether customers who did not preorder would find stock when sales begin on October 23.

The iPhone Duo is among the first major products launched under new chief executive John Ternus, who took over in September. Analysts Anurag Rana and Josh Christensen said in a note that sales could exceed their earlier forecast of 14 million units and that related revenue could top $28 billion in Apple's fiscal 2027.

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6. iPhone 18 Pro Max Hits Nearly 900,000 Weekly Activations in China

Source: Mydrivers

Apple's iPhone 18 Pro Max recorded nearly 900,000 activations in China in a single week, setting a new record, according to tipster Digital Chat Station. In the 41st week of 2026, from October 5 to 11, single-model activations approached 900,000 units, while combined sales of the iPhone 18 Pro series have exceeded 4 million.

The large-screen, high-memory Pro Max accounted for more than half of total shipments, with buyers more willing to choose the top configuration than in previous launch cycles. On Antutu's September ranking of iOS device satisfaction, the iPhone 18 Pro Max scored 99.02%, taking first place and becoming the only device to exceed 99%.

Recent Android flagships have raised prices as key component costs rise, narrowing the gap with iPhone Pro models in the 10,000-yuan segment and reinforcing the perceived value of Apple's high-end phones. The iPhone 18 Pro series is also part of Double 11 promotions offering up to 800 yuan in combined subsidies.

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7. Qualcomm CMO Denies Systemic Overheating in Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6

Source: Mydrivers

Qualcomm's chief marketing officer Don McGuire publicly denied reports that the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 suffers from systemic overheating, saying the claims are inaccurate. Rumours had circulated that the chip, the industry's first phone processor built on TSMC's 2nm process, still struggled with heat during prolonged heavy loads. A source said Samsung found noticeable performance throttling in internal compatibility tests and sent the full results to Qualcomm, asking for fixes.

In a post on X, McGuire said the reports were completely inaccurate. He added that phone manufacturers continuously tune the chip platform's underlying parameters throughout the launch cycle, testing different usage scenarios to find the best balance between peak performance and power consumption and heat.

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8. All-Weather Airship 'Yunxiao M1000-CNS' Completes First Flight Tests

Source: Guancha

Beijing-based Yunfeng Flight Technology completed a series of first-flight tests of its all-weather "Yunxiao M1000-CNS" airship in Rongxian county, Sichuan province, between October 13 and 16, according to the company's WeChat account. The white platform, 21 metres in diameter and 24 metres long, went through assembly of its rigid-flexible coupled structure, transfer out of the hangar, buoyancy transfer, mooring and low-altitude hovering, a key step toward engineering application.

More than 30 test items gathered data on day-night temperature and pressure changes, buoyancy baseline trimming, long-duration low-leak buoyancy, pressure holding, launch attitude stability and the performance limits of the rigid-flexible structure. The platform is designed to stay aloft for five consecutive years with a 20-year service life and a 300kg payload, powered by wind, solar and energy storage.

Rather than a single aircraft, the Yunxiao is positioned as a low-altitude "aerial tower" integrating communications relay, navigation augmentation, wide-area surveillance, weather sensing and counter-drone detection. A single unit covers about 2,000 square kilometres and provides navigation augmentation accurate to 20cm. Its core team traces back to the stratospheric airship programme under China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation's Gaofen project, with work dating to 2010.

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9. Xi Jinping Visits Ulanqab Computing Hub, Urges Better Data Centre Operations

Source: Lianhe Zaobao

President Xi Jinping visited Ulanqab in Inner Mongolia on Friday, October 16, a hub for China's AI computing capacity, accompanied by regional Communist Party secretary Wang Weizhong and regional government chairman Bao Gang, Xinhua reported. Ulanqab has abundant wind and solar resources and has developed a green computing industry based on cheap electricity, climate and location.

At the Chahar high-tech development zone, Xi learned about the region's role in the "East Data, West Computing" project and the development of green computing. He said the computing network is one of six networks planned by the state and that the computing industry is in a phase of accelerated development with broad prospects.

Xi called for efficient, green and safe operations, coordination between computing and electricity and water use, and better construction and operation of data centre projects. He also urged stronger planning, resource support and security guarantees so that completed projects run efficiently and later phases are finished on schedule.

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10. Antarctica's 'Doomsday Glacier' Melting Faster Than Thought, Study Finds

Source: Al Jazeera

A study published this week found that West Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier is losing mass rapidly as warm seawater pushes underneath it and melts its core. The research, published in Nature Communications, was carried out by University of California researchers with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Even if global warming does not accelerate, the glacier could add 1.2 inches (30mm) to sea levels by 2100, double previous estimates.

Nicknamed the "Doomsday Glacier," Thwaites is the largest glacier on Earth, spanning about 192,000 square kilometres, roughly the size of Senegal and larger than the U.S. state of Florida. Lead author Mattia Poinelli, a project scientist at UCLA, said the team developed the concept of a broader "grounding zone," in which seawater lifts and lowers the ice in a "tidal pumping" process that lets warm water reach deep beneath the ice sheet and cause vigorous melting.

That process is accelerating the glacier's unpinning from the Mouginot Ridge, with a 60% chance of detachment by the end of the century, the study found. Thwaites accounts for about 4% of global sea-level rise, has lost more than 1 trillion tonnes of ice since 2000 and continues to lose 50 billion tonnes a year. A separate British Antarctic Survey study concluded that the glacier will keep losing ice for at least 150 years even under the most extreme ocean cooling conditions imaginable.

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