Chinese President Xi Jinping took centrestage at a meeting of APEC leaders on Saturday to push a proposal for a global body to govern artificial intelligence and position China as an alternative to the United States on trade cooperation.

The comments were the first by the Chinese leader on an initiative Beijing unveiled this year, while the United States has rejected efforts to regulate AI in international bodies.

Xi said a World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization could set governance rules and boost cooperation, making AI a “public good for the international community”.

In remarks published by the official news agency Xinhua, Xi added, “Artificial intelligence is of great significance for future development and should be made for the benefit of people in all countries and regions.”

Chinese officials have said the organisation could be based in the commercial hub of Shanghai.

U.S. President Donald Trump did not attend the APEC leaders’ summit in the South Korean city of Gyeongju, flying back to Washington directly after a meeting with Xi.

The two leaders’ talks yielded a one-year deal to partially roll back trade and technology controls that had spiked tension between the world’s two biggest economies.

In Trump’s absence, analysts had expected Xi to use the APEC meeting to promote China as champion for its own brand of multilateral cooperation on trade and economic development.

While advanced chips made by California-based Nvidia are central to the AI boom, China-based developer DeepSeek has rolled out lower-cost models taken up by Beijing in a push for what it calls “algorithmic sovereignty”.

Xi also urged APEC to promote the “free circulation” of green technologies, a cluster of industries from batteries to solar panels that China dominates.

APEC members approved a joint declaration and pacts on AI and the challenge of ageing populations at the meeting.

China will host the 2026 APEC summit in Shenzhen, a major hub for manufacturing, from robotics to electric car production.

Xi said the city of nearly 18 million had been a fishing village until it boomed as one of China’s first special economic zones in the 1980s.

APEC is a consultative forum of 21 nations representing half of global trade.

More than half of Indian enterprises faced ransomware attacks in the past year, with more than 7 in 10 (71%) reporting a surge in AI-driven phishing or deepfake attempts, making India one of the most targeted and AI-exposed markets globally according to findings of a Global Ransomware Survey conducted by OpenText, which is into secure information management for AI.

As per the findings, Indian organisations are stepping up their cybersecurity posture, with cloud security (68%), network protection (60%), and backup technologies (58%) emerging as top priorities for 2026, indicating a proactive approach to securing hybrid and AI-powered environments.

“Ransomware incidents continue to be widespread,” the survey finds out. The survey was conducted with nearly 1,800 security practitioners and business leaders across seven countries, including more than 200 from India.

“In India, nearly 70% of affected organisations admitted to paying a ransom to regain access to their data, marking one of the highest rates globally. However, despite these persistent threats, 98.6% of Indian respondents expressed confidence in their organisation’s ability to recover, underscoring a widening gap between perceived resilience and actual exposure,” OpenText said in a statement.

The report also underscores the expanding role of AI in both cyberattacks and defence. “Over 71% of Indian organisations observed an increase in phishing or ransomware attempts linked to AI, while 66% encountered deepfake-style impersonation attacks such as voice and video spoofing,” the firm said.

“This surge in AI-enabled threats comes as an overwhelming majority of organisations (95%) allow employees to use generative AI tools, yet just over half have a formal AI-use or data privacy policy in place,” it added. 

“Organisations are right to be confident in their progress in security posture, but they can’t afford to be complacent,” said Muhi Majzoub, executive vice-president, Security Products, OpenText. 

“AI fuels productivity while also heightening risk through insufficient governance and its expanding use in attacks. Managing information securely and intelligently is essential to building resilience in organisations of any size,” he added.

“The findings point to a widening AI confidence gap as enterprises are quick to embrace AI for productivity and innovation but slower to implement governance frameworks that ensure compliance, privacy, and security,” the firm said. 

“Among Indian organisations hit by ransomware, only about 12% were able to fully recover their encrypted or stolen data, indicating that preparedness often falters in practice,” it said.

As per the findings ransomware incidents in India are also becoming more complex, with attacks frequently entering through third-party service providers or software supply chains.

Nearly two-third of surveyed organisations reported being impacted by a vendor or managed services partner breach in the past year. In response, 91% now conduct formal cybersecurity assessments of software suppliers, and 83% outsource parts of their security operations to managed service providers.

“Yet, even as these measures strengthen organisational defenses, heavy dependence on third-party ecosystems continues to expose businesses to cascading risks, especially in sectors such as technology, financial services, and manufacturing,” OpenText said.

Waymo is facing flak after one of its robotaxis ran over a California cat named KitKat in late October, reported The San Francisco Standard, with Waymo acknowledging there was an incident involving a cat.

Alphabet’s self-driving unit Waymo confirmed to the outlet that a small cat ran under its vehicle as it was pulling away.

However, an anonymous complaint alleged that the Waymo vehicle did not slow down or try to avoid the cat. It also raised doubts about Waymo vehicles’ ability to detect animals in the dark.

Waymo confirmed an incident and said it would make a donation to an animal rights organisation, per The San Francisco Standard.

KitKat, a grey striped cat with pale green eyes who wore a bell around his neck, was an informal “mascot” loved by shoppers and locals alike. A roadside memorial has since been put together for him, with flowers, photos, and KitKat chocolates.

“We’re heartbroken to share that our beloved store cat, KitKat, has passed away. He brought warmth, smiles, and comfort to everyone who walked through our doors. Thank you to all who loved him as much as we did. The store won’t be the same without his little paws padding around,” posted the Randa’s Market on Instagram last week, along with a photo of KitKat.

This is not the first time an animal has been killed by an autonomous vehicle. A Waymo robotaxi in the autonomous mode killed a dog in California in 2023, reported tech outlet Tech Crunch.

On X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk appeared to reference the incident and defend autonomous vehicles when he posted, “True, many pets will be saved by autonomy” on October 31. He was re-tweeting a post claiming that over five million cats were hit by cars every year in the U.S.

Apple achieved highest value growth of 28% during the Q3 2025 in India with consistent demand for iPhone 15 and 16 series, while the newly launched iPhone 17 series witnessing strong momentum with demand outpacing that of its predecessor, noted Counterpoint Research.

Simultaneously, Apple also entered into the top five smartphone brands by volume in Q3 2025 with a 9% share. The research firm also said that India has become the third-largest iPhone market.

Samsung followed closely with 23% value share, driven by its premium Galaxy S series, AI-led mid-tier A series, and offers on its high-end A-series models. The latest Galaxy Z Fold series also saw record sales, strengthening Samsung’s leadership in the foldable smartphone segment.”

Vivo remained the top brand by volume with a 20% share during the third quarter.

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Overall, India’s smartphone market grew 5% YoY by volume and 18% YoY by value in Q3 2025, highest-ever quarterly value, due to strong festive sell-in and sustained premium demand.

According to Counterpoint, the premium segment (30,000 plus) recorded the fastest YoY growth in shipment terms at 29% YoY, driven by robust demand for Apple and Samsung flagships.

iQOO became the fastest-growing brand in Q3 in terms of volume with 54% YoY growth. Motorola’s shipments grew 53% YoY driven by strong demand for the G and Edge series.

Lava was the fastest-growing brand in the below 10,000 price band with 135% YoY shipment growth. It was also the second fastest-growing brand in the sub-15,000 band.

MediaTek led India’s smartphone chipset market with a 46% shipment share, followed by Qualcomm with a 29% share.

itel drove the feature phone market with a 38% shipment share, followed by Lava with a 27% share.

During the quarter, online channels reached a 45% share of shipments, driven by festive season sell-in, while offline channels continued to lead with 55%.

U.S. tech giant Microsoft on Monday announced $15.2 billion in investments in artificial intelligence and cloud computing in the United Arab Emirates.

Microsoft’s vice chairman and president Brad Smith said Microsoft had invested $7.3 billion in the Gulf country since 2023 and would spend $7.9 billion more by the end of 2029.

The deal sent U.S. chip-maker Nvidia shares up 2.6 percent, buoyed by hopes the AI juggernaut could see access for its most advanced chips expand to more markets.

“This is not money raised in the UAE. It’s money we’re spending in the UAE,” Smith wrote in a blog post published during a visit to Abu Dhabi.

Smith said the investments had been encouraged by both the US and UAE governments and had involved a partnership with the country’s G42 sovereign artificial intelligence company.

Roughly two-thirds of the money spent will go on building AI and cloud data centres in the UAE, and a third of it on planned local operating expenses.

In the blog post, Smith boasted that Microsoft was the first company to receive export licences from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to supply GPU chips to the UAE.

In some cases, Washington has restricted international access to some of American industry’s most advanced processors of the type that can run the latest AI models.

The UAE is a close U.S. ally and popular investment destination but Washington is keen to avoid seeing the most advanced chips evade export controls and end up with rivals such as China.

Microsoft hailed the “substantial work we did to meet the strong cybersecurity, national security, and other technology conditions required by these licenses.”

Updated licences granted in September allow the firm to “ship the equivalent of 60,400 additional A100 chips … involving Nvidia’s even more advanced GB300 GPUs.”

“We’re using these GPUs to provide access to advanced AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, open-source providers and Microsoft itself,” Smith said.

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI signed a $38 billion deal Monday with Amazon’s AWS cloud computing arm, as the artificial intelligence company continues on a major partnership spree that has also included Oracle, Broadcom, AMD and chip-making juggernant Nvidia.

Under the seven-year agreement, OpenAI, which is partly owned by AWS’s archrival Microsoft, will gain access to computing resources including hundreds of thousands of state-of-the-art Nvidia GPUs, the crucial component of the generative artificial intelligence revolution.

The deal, which will grow over its multi-year term, will also give access to tens of millions of more conventional CPUs that will be used for the everyday deployment of so-called agentic AI.

“Scaling frontier AI requires massive, reliable compute,” said OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman in a joint statement. “Our partnership with AWS strengthens the broad compute ecosystem that will power this next era and bring advanced AI to everyone.”

OpenAI will immediately begin utilising AWS computing, with all capacity targeted to be used before the end of 2026, and the ability to expand further in the coming years.

By some estimates, OpenAI has inked approximately $1 trillion worth of infrastructure deals in 2025, including a $300 billion Oracle deal and a $500 billion Stargate project with Oracle and SoftBank.

The massive infrastructure spending comes as revenues in 2025 are expected to be in the tens of billions this year, a very high figure for a startup, but far from the amount needed to recoup the costs of computing needed to power OpenAI’s powerful chatbots.

The deal was the first one since OpenAI formalised its new structure, in which the company has a freer hand to move away from its non-profit origins and deliver profits for its investors.

The partnership with AWS builds on existing collaboration between the companies, with OpenAI’s more open-source models already available on Amazon servers.

Palantir Technologies forecast fourth-quarter revenue above analysts’ estimates on Monday, as the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence boosts demand for its data analytics services from businesses and governments.

Shares of the company gained about 2% in extended trading.

The defence contractor raised its annual sales target for the third time this year, amid strong sales for its services that ease the transition to the complex, data-intensive technology.

Palantir, co-founded by tech billionaire Peter Thiel, expects fourth-quarter sales of between $1.327 billion and $1.331 billion, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $1.19 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.

The company also raised its annual sales forecast to a range of $4.396 billion to $4.40 billion, from its earlier expectations of between $4.142 billion and $4.15 billion.

Palantir last month announced a deal with Nvidia to use the AI chip leader’s processors and software to help its customers speed up decision making in complex fields.

It now expects sales to U.S. businesses to exceed $1.43 billion this year, up from the $1.30 billion it forecast earlier.

The results come at a crucial moment as big-ticket spending on AI expansion and sky-rocketing market valuations have sparked concerns of an “AI bubble”.

Palantir’s shares have more than doubled in value this year, outpacing the gains in the world’s most valuable firm – Nvidia – and the benchmark S&P 500 Index.

The stock trades at a whopping 12-month-forward price-to-earnings ratio of 246.2, compared with Wall Street darling Nvidia’s 33.3, according to LSEG data.

Palantir’s results have also been buoyed by expectations of increased defense spending on its military-grade AI tools.

The company, initially backed by the CIA, is benefiting from a shift in the Pentagon’s software-buying process towards commercial providers under U.S. President Donald Trump.

Palantir reported revenue of $1.18 billion for the quarter ended September 30, beating estimates of $1.09 billion. Adjusted per share earnings of 21 cents also beat estimates of 17 cents.

China has increased subsidies that cut energy bills by up to half for some of the country’s largest data centres, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Local governments have beefed up incentives to help Chinese tech giants such as ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent, which have been hit with higher electricity costs following Beijing’s ban on purchasing Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips, the newspaper reported.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.

Google owner Alphabet is tapping the U.S. dollar and euro debt markets in a multi-tranche senior unsecured notes offering.

The digital media and tech giant will use the proceeds from the note sale for general corporate purposes, including the potential repayment of a portion of its outstanding debt, according to a Monday report by Moody’s Ratings.

Alphabet last took out fresh debt in April, tapping the euro debt market for 6.75 billion euros ($7.87 billion) for the first time. Tech peer Oracle itself sought $18 billion in new debt in September, while Meta raised $30 billion in bonds last month.

Demand for cloud and artificial intelligence services from Alphabet and other tech conglomerates is on the rise.

“These corporations are saying they’re capacity constrained,” said Emile El Nems, senior credit officer at Moody’s Ratings. “Layer on top of that the potential demand that could be coming in from AI computing and you say to yourself there is something there,” he added, referring to an apparent trend of tech companies tapping the debt markets. Alphabet, Oracle and Meta are also less levered than their peers, he said.

Alphabet has maintained a leading market position through its array of digital services, most notably its Google search service where it has integrated its Gemini AI platform. The company also holds dominant market positions through its advertising and YouTube businesses.

A representative for Alphabet did not immediately return a request for comment.

Verizon announced a deal with Amazon Web Services on Monday to build high-capacity fiber routes connecting AWS data centers, aiming to strengthen infrastructure for the next generation of artificial intelligence applications.

The partnership underscores how cloud and telecom giants are racing to meet surging data and network demands from generative AI, which requires fast, secure and resilient connections to process massive workloads.

Under the Verizon AI Connect agreement, the telecom giant will construct long-haul, low-latency fiber pathways to enhance the performance and reliability of AI workloads running on AWS cloud. The companies did not disclose financial details of the deal.

Telecom operators are increasingly viewed as critical enablers of the emerging AI-driven economy, while cloud providers are reporting brisk growth driven by AI workloads.

Last week, the three major cloud providers, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet, reported accelerating revenue growth, driven by demand for generative AI. They all expect significantly stronger capital spending next year.

The new agreement deepens Verizon’s long-standing strategic relationship with AWS, which already includes joint work on private mobile edge computing and Verizon’s adoption of AWS as a preferred cloud provider.