Odaily News: Multiple sources involved in the deal stated that large model company DeepSeek will complete its latest funding round in the near future, with the financing amount increased from the previously planned 50 billion yuan to approximately 100 billion yuan. This is DeepSeek's second funding round, and the proposed financing amount doubled in less than half a month. Among them, the proposed investment amounts from new and existing shareholders each account for roughly half. The doubling of the financing scale did not affect the overall valuation, and DeepSeek's current pre-money valuation remains at approximately 500 billion yuan. New investors in this round include Shixi Capital, SMIC Capital, CPE Yuanfeng, Legend Capital, Geely, and others, predominantly industrial investors. (Caijing Magazine)

Odaily reports: A research report from CICC states that in the first half of 2026, the A-share technology growth style benefited from high prosperity in areas such as the AI industry chain and high-end manufacturing, continuing its structural market performance. Since July, negative narratives surrounding the global AI industry chain have increased, combined with tightening expectations for overseas liquidity and rising uncertainty in Middle East geopolitical tensions, the growth sectors that had previously performed strongly in the A-share market have undergone significant corrections. Against the backdrop of increased volatility in the growth style and declining market risk appetite, the relative allocation value of dividend assets deserves renewed consideration.Overall, in an environment characterized by limited elasticity in aggregate growth, the coexistence of structural high prosperity and increased volatility in market risk appetite, the barbell-shaped structure of "tech + dividends" is expected to become an allocation choice that balances profit growth elasticity, shareholder cash returns, and portfolio stability. On the technology side, it is recommended to focus on companies with clear industry trends, long-term competitive advantages, and the ability to deliver on earnings; on the dividend side, focus on high-quality companies with stable earnings and cash flow, sustainable dividends, and reasonable valuations. (Jinshi)

Odaily News: The "State Council's Opinions on Developing New Quality Productive Forces" proposes promoting the deep integration of the real economy and the digital economy, optimizing the layout, construction, and operation of national data infrastructure, carrying out in-depth actions for the digital transformation of manufacturing, implementing projects such as "Channeling Computing Resources from the East to the West," intelligent manufacturing, and innovative development of the industrial internet, and building a nationally integrated computing power network and a national blockchain network. The opinions also propose improving the policy system for promoting digital industrialization and industrial digitalization, and building digital industry clusters with international competitiveness.

Odaily News: SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said on Friday that chipmaker SK Hynix is planning to build a new semiconductor industry cluster in Gwangju, South Korea, as soon as possible, betting on strong demand growth, but did not disclose a specific start date. Chey Tae-won stated that the company has moved up the construction schedule of the Yongin semiconductor park by 12 years, and may need to advance multiple projects simultaneously if necessary.

Odaily News: U.S.-listed company Universal Safety Products has announced that it will rebrand as DeFi Capital Markets on October 19 and trade under the new ticker DCM. The company will gradually wind down its existing product business and pivot toward asset tokenization, digital assets, market making, quantitative trading, and blockchain-based financial markets.

Odaily reports that Arthur Hayes stated that U.S. policymakers may support the AI industry and government debt financing through money printing, driving cryptocurrency prices higher; if China shifts from limited tightening to large-scale monetary stimulus, it could also boost demand for scarce assets. He is also monitoring financial stress in France, including BNP Paribas-related credit default swaps and French government bond spreads.Catrina Wang, General Partner at Portal Ventures, said that banks and asset management companies have advantages in on-chain financial markets thanks to their existing client relationships. Todd McDonald, co-founder of R3, pointed out that public blockchains can help institutions reach clients beyond their own networks; Justin Kugel, Executive Vice President of Growth at World Liberty Financial, said that user demand for asset management and investment evaluation still leaves room for intermediaries.Chetan Karkhanis, Senior Vice President of Digital Asset Client Relationships at Franklin Templeton, said the company has no intention of issuing its own stablecoin and hopes tokenized money market funds will provide investment returns. Haonan Li, co-founder and CEO of Codex, said that trade routes connecting Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia are driving demand for stablecoin payments; buyers pay eastward for goods, while manufactured products flow westward.Ilya Podoynitsyn, co-founder and CEO of FinHarbor, said that before allocating to crypto assets, companies need to confirm they have long-term idle funds that will not affect daily operations. Michael Camarda, Chief Development Officer of Ethereum treasury company SharpLink, said that both buying back shares and increasing ETH holdings can raise ETH per share; the company has adopted both methods to meet the preferences of institutional and retail investors. (Cointelegraph)

Odaily News: The Kazakh government is pushing to use associated gas to power cryptocurrency mining in order to revive the mining industry that has been affected by power restrictions. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a decree in July requiring the development of mechanisms for companies to use associated gas for digital mining.Daniyar Mubarakov, head of the Blockchain and Digital Mining Association, said that Kazakhstan's total associated gas could be converted into 1.2 to 1.3 TWh of electricity, enough to support the construction of medium or large data centers or Bitcoin mining farms at some oil fields.Kazakhstan's Ministry of Energy estimates that up to 60 oil fields in the country produce associated gas. Oil companies can sell waste gas to miners, reducing millions of dollars in disposal costs, while miners can lock in multi-year power prices and reduce their reliance on grid electricity.The Kazakh government is developing a relevant legal framework to clarify operating rules for companies and regulate the market. Gizzat Baitursynov, Vice Minister of AI and Digital Development of Kazakhstan, said the mechanism will increase government tax revenue and improve the environment. (Bitcoin.com News)

Odaily News: Musk shared a long-form article on X by DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg regarding AI and the creative industry. Katzenberg stated that AI is significantly reducing the time and cost of animation production, but current AI is still primarily good at reasoning, evaluation, and optimization, and there remains a gap between it and true creativity, which relies on human taste, intuition, empathy, and expressive intent. He believes that AI will not disappear, and Hollywood needs to accept this reality, while AI developers should collaborate with creators, using their works and ideas on the basis of obtaining authorization, giving credit, and providing reasonable compensation. Katzenberg also predicted that as AI lowers production barriers and costs, more films and new forms of storytelling will emerge in the future.

Odaily News: The AI boom has once again gained market funding support. Investors who had previously questioned AI investment returns and worried about excessively high tech stock valuations are now readjusting their views.As major tech companies continue to increase AI infrastructure spending and related companies maintain resilient performance, the market is beginning to search for the next stage of growth pathways in the AI industry.Over the past year, debates surrounding artificial intelligence have persisted. On one hand, companies such as Nvidia (NVDA), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), and Google (GOOGL) have continued to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in building AI computing infrastructure, driving demand growth in chips, cloud computing, and data centers; on the other hand, some investors believe that while AI capital expenditure is enormous, actual commercial returns for enterprises still need time to be verified, and tech stock valuations have already priced in excessive optimism.Recent market performance shows that capital is flowing back into AI-related assets. Investors who had previously bet that the AI rally was overdone and that tech stocks would face a correction are now reducing their bearish positions, with some traders beginning to look for new upside potential. (WSJ)

Odaily News — In the "Binance Living Room" session of the "Ye Tan — Beneath the Cycle" private gathering, renowned economist Ye Tan shared her views on topics including the Kondratieff cycle, changes in China's economic structure, and the flow of wealth. She stated that if we are currently at a turning point in the Kondratieff cycle, the internet era is drawing to a close, while AI has already become a new growth direction, and this round of change has in fact already begun.Ye Tan pointed out that against the backdrop of an overall investment downturn in China, AI-related infrastructure investment remains at the level of tens of trillions of yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate exceeding 10%. If the related plans continue through 2030, social wealth and resources may continue to tilt toward emerging industries such as AI. However, she also emphasized that AI itself contains sub-sector differences and market fluctuations, and industry growth does not necessarily mean that related investments will be profitable.From the perspective of China's economic cycle, Ye Tan believes that China has rapidly completed multiple stages over the past 40-plus years, including manufacturing, basic industries, and informatization, with the pace of economic structural transition notably accelerating, which has also brought about dramatic divergence among different assets and industries. Citing real estate and high-tech industries as examples, she noted that during the same period, different industries and groups of people may have vastly different perceptions of the economic cycle, which essentially reflects the redistribution of wealth among different industries.At the medium-cycle level, geopolitics is also affecting industry prosperity. Using the shipbuilding industry as an example, Ye Tan said that the obstruction of the Red Sea shipping route has lengthened shipping routes and reduced vessel turnover efficiency, objectively increasing shipping companies' demand for vessels and extending the duration of the shipbuilding industry's prosperity cycle.Regarding the current economic environment, Ye Tan stated that traditional manufacturing and some consumer industries may be at the end of a recessionary cycle and gradually bottoming out, but at the same time, new industries are rising, creating pronounced structural divergence. She believes that the cycle itself will not directly tell investors what to buy, but it can help observe where wealth and capital are flowing and where risks are accumulating.Finally, Ye Tan emphasized that different investors have different tools they excel at and different risk tolerance levels, and they should invest according to their own circumstances, testing the waters with small amounts and acting within their means.