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Anthropic and OpenAI have repeatedly warned since mid-September about the risks of失控 (loss of control) in Recursive Self-Improvement (RSI), urging a slowdown in R&D to allow time for safety measures. Chinese AI players are advancing aggressively: Zhipu's Tang Jie disclosed the company's first RSI engineering practice on September 17, Xiaomi released the MiMo-V2.6 series on September 22 as a "key step," and Alibaba's Wu Yongming said Qwen is exploring RSI. Anthropic、OpenAI警示AI自我改进风险 中美科技巨头竞逐RSI Anthropic和OpenAI自9月中旬以来多次警告递归自我改进(RSI)的失控风险，呼吁放缓研发进度以争取安全保障时间。中国AI企业加速布局：智谱唐杰于9月17日披露公司首个RSI工程化实践，小米于9月22日发布MiMo-V2.6系列称为“探索RSI的关键一步”，阿里吴泳铭透露Qwen团队正在RSI探索中。尽管存在警示，资本市场仍对RSI叙事反应积极。

Chinese researchers developed a computer simulation suggesting a missile-borne lidar system could detect and track a US F-35 stealth fighter at up to 61.5km. The simulation represents one of seven science highlights from SCMP's coverage of the past two weeks.

Initial results from the world's first two working nuclear clocks show China's timepiece is about six times as stable as Vienna's, according to Nature papers published this week. The Chinese team at Tsinghua University and Vienna's TU Wien both used thorium-229 nuclei embedded in crystals to keep time. This marks a milestone in precision timekeeping technology.

Multiple energy storage fire and explosion incidents occurred in 2026, including a 21.6MW solar-storage plant in Prince Edward Island and a facility in Southern California. Envision completed a 64MWh station-level fire test—the largest in the industry—with flames burning for 9 hours before self-extinguishing, while adjacent cabinet cell temperatures stayed below 50°C.

Elon Musk's xAI has made Grok Bot free for all users, providing access to the flagship Opus 5.5 model and full X platform integration without API fees. The bot uses automatic "dynamic routing" to deploy models including Opus 5.5, Midjourney and Suno based on task requirements. Musk's platform is subsidizing Opus 5.5's typical cost of $4/MTok input and $20/MTok output.

Chinese researchers have developed a cobalt-manganese catalyst that converts woody biomass-derived synthesis gas into sustainable jet fuel. The catalyst was verified in a thousand-tonne pilot test and could yield a gross profit margin above 50 per cent, potentially boosting production toward net-zero carbon goals.

According to Analysys data, Tencent's WorkBuddy reached 20.97 million monthly visits in June 2026, surpassing ByteDance's TRAE IDE (12.79M) and Alibaba's Qoder Work (7.88M) combined. WorkBuddy connects with WeChat, QQ, Enterprise WeChat and Telegram, allowing users to issue commands on mobile that execute on desktop with results pushed back via WeChat. The platform aims to become an "operating system for the Agent era" and has opened its ecosystem to over 100 partners.

Cybersecurity researchers from Asia, Europe and the U.S. identified malware in Pinduoduo, a Chinese e-commerce app with 750 million monthly users, that can monitor activities on other apps, read messages and change settings. The app exploited dozens of Android vulnerabilities to collect user data without consent. Google suspended Pinduoduo from its Play Store in March. A company source said a 100-person team developed the exploits to boost sales before being disbanded in early March.