PM Edition: Top 10 Business Articles on LiveNews.co.nz for September 23, 2026 – Full Text

Centering on the development of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 and marking the fifth anniversary of the China-ASEAN Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, this year’s expo focused on deepening the integration of artificial intelligence and the real economy. UnionPay leverages AI technology and connectivity to enhance the effectiveness of China-ASEAN economic and trade cooperation and drive the high-quality development of the digital ecosystem.

Driving AI-Powered Real Economy to Build New Advantages for ASEAN Digital and Intelligent Finance

Based on Guangxi’s strategic position as a gateway to the ASEAN region, UnionPay is building an “AI + finance” innovation hub characterized by integrations in Guangxi, service delivery to ASEAN, and wider reach across the Asia-Pacific. Collaborations in progress include the development of high-quality, ASEAN-oriented financial corpora for AI training, the assessment and testing of the China-ASEAN financial AI service sharing network, and the co-creation of Guangxi’s alliance for combating telecom fraud.

Powered by the AI-driven risk control system that it has developed in-house, UnionPay continues to strengthen cross-border risk governance. The Out-of-Band (OOB) enhanced authentication implementation has seen the overall fraud rate of pilot banks drop by 90% against pre-deployment levels. UnionPay is also collaborating with overseas terminal manufacturers to roll out intelligent upgrades on their devices, effectively preventing various cross-border payment risks and making cross-border financial services easier to use and more secure.

Echoing the expo’s highlights, the UnionPay exhibition area also featured immersive experience zones for intelligent in-vehicle systems and smart glasses, showing how the Agentic Payment Open Protocol (APOP) framework enables the end-to-end integration of services and AI-powered payment in multiple use cases. The intuitive presentations demonstrated the efficacy of the financial AI product cycle that starts with R&D in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, integration in Guangxi, and eventually ends with application in the ASEAN nations. They also showcased AI’s innovative value in powering the real economy and upgrading the financial sector.

Connecting Cross-Border Payment Rails to Drive Regional Economic and Trade Integration

This year’s expo also featured a dedicated area for matching supply and demand in AI-powered procurement. Focusing on the three themes of “Procurement in China,” “Export to China,” and “Investment in China,” UnionPay continues to refine its payment service system for ASEAN by strengthening the infrastructure for regional economic and trade connectivity.

UnionPay’s acceptance network has expanded to ten ASEAN countries, covering over 38 million QR merchants in the region. Contactless payment acceptance at POS terminals and ATMs, as well as local card issuance, is also available extensively in these markets. In multiple ASEAN countries, UnionPay is creating benchmarks for cross-border connectivity under the government-to-government cooperation model. A prime example is the China-Indonesia QR payment linkage that went live this past June, bringing the number of UnionPay’s overseas QR merchants to over 46 million. The interoperability of payment network standards and the integration of the systems involved have also been completed with many other ASEAN members. For example, the cooperation between China and Vietnam is accelerating. A single integration of systems has ensured standards harmonization, allowing Chinese consumers to use their wallets in Vietnam, while work is underway to enable the acceptance of Vietnam-based wallets in China.

Building on retail payment connectivity, UnionPay continues to broaden its service offerings. To meet the needs arising from the cross-border expansion of enterprises and industrial chains, UnionPay leverages its self-developed integrated information service platform for cross-border B2B transactions to create digital payment solutions for emerging business models, such as cross-border e-commerce and flight and hotel services, empowering industry partners in the process.

Upgrading Cross-Border Consumer Services to Unlock Potential for New Use Cases of AI-Powered Purchasing

This year’s expo placed a strong focus on the upgrade of everyday consumption. A first-ever “AI product marketplace” was set up that promoted cross-border AI-driven consumer purchasing. Addressing the various needs of business people and general consumers visiting China during their travel cycles, which ranges from transport, shopping to the final departure from the country, UnionPay has launched the Nihao China App, an all-in-one platform of intelligent and digital cross-border services. The solution targeted precisely the above needs of the ASEAN businesses and consumers during the expo. Supporting easy sign-up with international mobile numbers and email addresses, the Nihao China App allows users to pay via mainstream Chinese QR codes without needing to link a Chinese bank card. The app provides multilingual assistance across high-frequency use cases in 27 languages, such as cross-border shopping, cultural tourism, transit, and everyday purchases. The app also facilitates departure tax refunds by streamlining the process for travelers, closing the payment loop with an intelligent, all-inclusive service.

• High- performance AI chips announced at Apsara Conference
• Next-generation Qwen 4 Model in training with future model’s scale to 10 trillion parameters

HANGZHOU, CHINA – Media OutReach Newswire – 22 September 2026 – Alibaba today announced comprehensive updates with a roadmap for its full-stack AI strategy to fully unleash the value of AI at scale to customers through its latest innovations.

At this year’s Apsara Conference, Alibaba Cloud’s annual flagship technology conference, the technology innovator announced a series of updates featuring Qwen foundation models and multimodal models, new proprietary AI chips, a purpose-built agentic cloud, and an AI agent platform for mobile phones reinforcing Alibaba Cloud’s leading global position in the new AI era.

“The theme of this year’s Apsara Conference is ‘Intelligence Goes Beyond’. Over the past few years, AI has continuously expanded our imagination of technological capabilities. AI possesses vast potential for development–it can be deployed and scaled in real-world scenarios, boosting productivity across thousands of industries,” said Joe Tsai, Chairman of Alibaba Group. “This is the true meaning of ‘Intelligence Goes Beyond’: guiding AI from technological breakthroughs toward value creation.”

“Today, the total volume of Machine Thinking is less than 3% of all Human Thinking. If that volume eventually scales to 1,000x human capacity, the simple math tells us: Machine Thinking still has an enormous growth runway. As machines are becoming the primary force behind Thinking, turning intelligence into a commodity supplied at scale, the truly groundbreaking products of the Machine Intelligence era have not yet arrived,” said Eddie Wu, CEO of Alibaba Group. “With this in mind, our target is that by 2032, the global data center capacity operated by Alibaba Cloud will surpass 20GW, fueling the industry’s exponentially rising demand for AI.”

Qwen 4 in training

At the conference, Alibaba revealed that its next-generation model, Qwen 4, is currently in training. The company further announced its roadmap for the upcoming Qwen 4.5 and Qwen 5 model series, projected to scale up to 5 to 10 trillion parameters.

Alibaba has revealed progress in RSI (Recursive Self-Improvement) driven by empirical feedback. Over a month of fully automated runs – spanning pipeline design, data validation, iterative experimentation, and error diagnosis – Qwen3.8-Max completed 33 iterative cycles. Through autonomous training optimisation and post-training techniques, the updated Qwen3.8-Max boosted its Artificial Analysis score from 40 to 45.

In a chip design experiment, the model underwent over 60 hours of self-improvement across the entire design lifecycle, making more than 10,000 EDA tool calls to produce production-grade chip bus modules. This reduced chip area by 42% with zero compromise in performance.

Multimodal Model Family Upgrades

Alibaba introduced multimodal model updates spanning speech, audio, and vision.

The company debuted Qwen3.8-LiveTranslate, a simultaneous interpretation model that enhances translation fidelity, fluency, and brevity, reduces latency (LAAL) nearly 20% from 2.8 to 2.3 seconds for a smoother, more responsive real-time translation experience.

It also unveiled Qwen-Audio-3.1-TTS-Next, a next-generation audio generation model capable of creating complete cinematic soundscapes by blending dialogue and ambient sounds all at once from a text script, designed for professional creative needs such as audiobooks, film and television, podcasts and games.

The updated speech suite also includes Qwen-Audio-3.1-ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition), Qwen-Audio-3.1-TTS (Text-to-Speech), and Qwen-Audio-3.1-Realtime, offering enhanced voice AI capabilities for understanding, generation, and real-time interaction.

Qwen-Image 3.1, an image-generation model optimized for creative design and e-commerce marketing, is set to launch later this year. It cuts visual design turnaround from hours to seconds while offering advanced generative tools, including native transparent-background generation and versatile image-editing capabilities.

To standardize world model evaluation, Alibaba Token Hub, alongside leading academic and industry partners, has introduced a six-tier capability framework and launched Happyworld Arena benchmarking platform, spanning video generation, embodied AI, and spatial reconstruction.

Bringing the models closer to general users, Alibaba has launched Qwen Intelligence, a business-facing full-stack agentic solution optimized for smartphones. It provides phone makers with access to a Qwen-powered agent platform to support next-generation AI phones that can handle complex, cross-app tasks reliably.

T-Head Unveils Zhenwu V900 and Yitian CPU Roadmap

T-Head, Alibaba’s chip design unit, has unveiled the Zhenwu V900, its latest AI training and inference processor featuring high-capacity memory and robust inter-chip bandwidth.

The Zhenwu V900 delivers three times the performance of its predecessor, the Zhenwu M890 (released in May). Featuring 216 GB of GPU memory and 1,200 GB/s of inter-chip bandwidth, the new accelerator is built to power demanding AI workloads with native support across multiple data precisions, including FP8 and FP4. By significantly reducing inference costs while increasing compute density, it seamlessly handles both high-precision model training and ultra-low-precision inference. It is scheduled for mass production and commercial release in Q1 2027.

T-Head’s Zhenwu AI chips have been serving over 650 customers across different industries including automobile, finance, large language models, embodied intelligence, energy, and manufacturing.

Alibaba also unveiled its upgraded supernode server, which integrates the Zhenwu V900 processor, ICN Switch, Panmai SmartNIC, and Zhenyue SSD controller chip. Optimized for full-stack system-level synergy across compute, storage, and networking, the server can support a supernode cluster comprising up to 500,000 cards.

Additionally, Alibaba unveiled its roadmap for next-generation proprietary CPUs tailored for agentic AI tasks, scheduled for launch in 2027. The Yitian 720 features enhanced single-core performance, higher core density, and increased energy efficiency compared to its predecessor, the Yitian 710; The Yitian 730, the first CPU built on T-Head’s proprietary microarchitecture, boasts up to a 40% increase in SPECint2017/GHz performance over Yitian 710’s.

Agentic Cloud

Alibaba Cloud unveiled a comprehensive suite of upgrades centered on its agentic cloud strategy, built around three core scenarios — model, harness and context. The upgrades span three corresponding layers: AI Native Cloud for model, powering large-scale model training and inference; Agent Native Cloud for harness, enabling enterprise-grade agent deployment, operation and security; and Context Engine for context, providing real-time data and long-term memory, helping customers create real-world value with AI at scale.

AI Native Cloud

• Alibaba Cloud’s Platform for AI (PAI) has integrated synergistic optimizations integrating inferencing, caching, sample replay and training services. In real-world post-training of Qwen models, PAI completed state-of-the-art model training in just five days, advancing from pre-training toward Agentic RL.
• Cloud Parallel File Storage (CPFS) system is a new-generation system optimized to better support AI model training, delivering hundred-terabyte-per-second throughput and hundred-million input/output operations per second (IOPS), helping cut enterprise AI storage costs by 69%.
• HPN 8.0 Pro, Alibaba Cloud’s latest proprietary AI networking architecture, delivers 100 petabits bandwidth with ultra-low latency. A single cluster can support over 130,000 network ports at 800G speeds, with built-in redundancy ensuring that neither optical transceiver nor link failures cause service interruptions, while reducing the impact of network upgrades and failures from 50% to 25% compared to previous generation.

Agent Native Cloud

• AgentCore, is a new enterprise platform to build, run and manage AI agents throughout their entire lifecycle. It enables businesses to easily build and run their AI tools, safely control human-agent collaboration, and monitor performance for continuous improvements. With enterprise-grade security embedded at the operating layer, AgentCore provides organizations with a single, controlled foundation to deploy diverse AI agents and seamlessly integrate them into critical business systems at scale.
• The Agent Security Center delivers full-lifecycle security and compliance management for enterprise AI agent applications. The platform provides a multi-layered defense system powered by real-time threat detection, ensuring agents operate securely within controllable boundaries at scale.

Context Engine

• Agent Context is an enterprise-grade context data service that gives AI agents real-time context and long-term memory. By connecting a company’s documents, business systems, chat records and multimodal data into a single foundation, it enables agents to remember past tasks, share knowledge across teams, and learn continuously. In knowledge-intensive scenarios such as customer service, AI coding and data analytics, it cuts token usage by up to 67%.
• OpenLake has been upgraded into a unified, multi-modality data lakehouse, where a single copy of data—structured, semi-structured, unstructured, vector, and streaming formats—serves multiple compute engines for processing, search, analysis, and model training. Compared with traditional architectures, OpenLake reduces total costs by 38% and cuts query response times by 40%.

Hashtag: #Alibaba

Fraser Suites Reserve Bangkok starts welcoming guests at One Bangkok in December 2026

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach Newswire – 22 September 2026 – Frasers Hospitality, a business unit of Frasers Property, today announced Fraser Suites Reserve, a new luxury serviced living brand created for discerning global travellers seeking the privacy, ease and familiarity of home while away, complemented by the service and standards of luxury hospitality.

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About Frasers Hospitality

Source: Asia New Zealand Foundation Te Whītau Tūhono

22 September 2026

A group of New Zealand entrepreneurs is heading to one of Asia’s largest health and beauty trade expos this week.

The visit is part of the ASEAN Young Business Leaders Initiative (YBLI), delivered by the Asia New Zealand Foundation in partnership with the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The beauty expo, Cosmobeaute Malaysia, will kick off in Kuala Lumpur from September 29 until October 1, hosting 400 exhibitors from 11 different markets including China, Korea and Japan.

The visit aims to give the entrepreneurs travelling product ideas and potential partnership opportunities in a rapidly growing industry. Worldwide consumer spending on wellness increased by 35 percent from 2019 to 2024, and the global wellness economy is projected to reach NZ$17.1trillion by 2029.

Of that, Malaysia’s personal care and beauty sector was valued at NZ$20.6 billion in 2024.

Rawinia Rimene, founder of Girl Native Skincare, is joining the delegation after recently attending VivaTech in Paris, where she successfully secured new business partnerships.

After making connections in Europe, Rimene is looking forward to building relationships “closer to home” in Malaysia and says face-to-face is best.

“It’s very important to be on the ground, in person. You get a better understanding of each other, especially when there are different cultures and languages.”

Rimene is a trailblazer in Māori health and beauty, founding her company after rongoā Māori practices successfully treated her daughter’s skin condition. For Rimene, the opportunity to take her business overseas is also about showing her daughter what is possible.

Rosie Woodhams, who leads marketing and branding for BeauEver, is excited to learn from other businesses that have built from the ground up.

“For me, this opportunity is huge; I haven’t done anything like this before… I haven’t been to Malaysia before for work, so I’m looking forward to having exposure to the way they do things.

As well as the expo, the Foundation – led by our experienced entrepreneurship manager Lingy Au – will be taking the delegates on site visits and to meetings with leading businesses while in Kuala Lumpur.

Asia New Zealand Foundation director of business and entrepreneurship Tim McCready says the trip will “compress a year of market research into one week”.

“Delegates will meet distributors face-to-face and see what’s on trend, what’s selling on shelf and at what price point. This delegation will open doors that would otherwise take years to knock on.”

McCready also believes New Zealand has a lot to offer to Malaysia, and more broadly Asia’s health and beauty market.

“New Zealand has a great story to tell; provenance, natural ingredients and traceability are all things that consumers pay attention to and pay a premium for.”

Asia New Zealand Foundation chief executive Suzannah Jessep says experiences like this are important for building New Zealand’s long-term business capability in Asia.

“Southeast Asia is an increasingly important part of New Zealand’s economic future, and making the most of those opportunities requires people who understand the region, have trusted relationships and are confident operating there,” Jessep says.

“YBLI gives emerging New Zealand business leaders that first-hand experience, building knowledge and connections that can benefit not only their own businesses, but the wider networks they are part of.”

The ASEAN Young Business Leaders Initiative (YBLI), formed in 2011, has facilitated visits for more than 130 ASEAN entrepreneurs to New Zealand and supported over 80 New Zealand entrepreneurs in exploring opportunities in Southeast Asia. In total, the YBLI Network numbers over 270 entrepreneurs.

Participants of the delegation

• Melitta Adam, Melitta Skin, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
• Julia Juhasz, No Bad Days Skincare, Founder
• Emma Michelsen, Aggie New Zealand Limited, Founder
• Scott Glacken, Noody Ltd, Cofounder
• Rawinia Rimene, Girl Native, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
• Kimberly Tait, Hinu Ora, Founder
• Amelia Jory, Dulesè, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
• Shaleah Lawrence, Earthwoven, Founder and Director
• Rosie Woodhams, BeauEver, Brand and Marketing Manager
• Madeleine Patel, Delightable, Cofounder and Chief Executive Officer

About the Asia New Zealand Foundation Te Whītau Tūhono

Established in 1994, the Asia New Zealand Foundation Te Whītau Tūhono is a leading provider of Asia insights and experiences in New Zealand. Its mission is to equip New Zealanders to excel in Asia by providing research, insights, and targeted opportunities to grow their knowledge, connections and experiences across the region. The Foundation’s activities cover more than 20 countries in Asia and are delivered through eight core programmes: arts, business, entrepreneurship, leadership, media, research, Track II diplomacy, and sports.

About the ASEAN Young Business Leaders Initiative

The ASEAN Young Business Leaders Initiative (YBLI) is a key part of the New Zealand Government’s ASEAN strategy. The aim of the programme is to facilitate trade and build connections between business leaders and entrepreneurs in New Zealand and Southeast Asia. This is achieved through short, targeted visits to New Zealand and Southeast Asia for ASEAN entrepreneurs and Kiwi entrepreneurs respectively.

Inspiring Asia Launched by HKAWL in Hong Kong for the First Time to Support its Impact Link Initiative to Foster Community Empowerment, Exchange and Strategic Philanthropy

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 22 September 2026 – The Hong Kong Academy for Wealth Legacy (HKAWL) brought the Inspiring Asia Micro Film Festival to Hong Kong for the first time as Regional Lead Partner, and recognised three winning entries at the inaugural Hong Kong regional awards. The festival culminated in a Screening and Award Ceremony on 21 September 2026 at The Hong Kong Jockey Club University of Chicago Academic Complex | The University of Chicago Francis and Rose Yuen Campus in Hong Kong, and was supported by Lee Hysan Foundation as Strategic Partner and Sponsor.

Guided by the theme “Community Empowerment” and the tagline “Belonging, Resilience, and Thriving”, participating filmmakers, students and community changemakers shared stories that explored inclusion, connection and resilience. The Festival encourages creators and community organisations to document community stories through micro films, fostering dialogue and greater social participation.

Award-Winning Films Spotlight Inclusion, Resilience and Community Connection

The three winning entries reflected these aspirations through stories of cross-cultural friendship, ageing with purpose and disability inclusion, offering perspectives on experiences that are often overlooked in everyday conversations.

A chance encounter lies at the heart of Between the Unsaid, the winner of the Best Micro Film Award, as an unexpected friendship blossoms between a Pakistani tailor and a local florist. Directed by Qasim Khan and produced by Kaneeta Arshad, the Hong Kong drama shows how kindness can cross linguistic and cultural boundaries, bringing comfort amid grief and isolation.

The Story Hunter, winner of the Best AI Film Award, follows an 80-year-old Hong Kong resident who finds renewed purpose by sharing lived experiences. Created by Yimin Chen and Ethan Wong, the drama combines human-written script with AI-assisted production to amplify older adults’ voices and value as storytellers, mentors and active contributors to the community.

Recipient of the Best Project Award, The Superpower of Little Hands challenges perceptions of congenital limb differences through stories co-created by children and parents from the Hand in Hand Association. The documentary shows how peer support, inclusion and understanding can build confidence, belonging and ambition.

Empowering Communities Beyond the Awards

As a flagship annual event of HKAWL’s Impact Link initiative, the Festival reflects its wider efforts to foster dialogue between philanthropy, the social sector and the creative community. As Regional Lead Partner, HKAWL worked with a diverse network of partners to support the Festival’s Hong Kong debut. Beyond the competition itself, Inspiring Asia serves as a platform for capacity building, community participation and collaborative philanthropy, bringing together filmmakers, NGOs, foundations, universities and other partners through activities such as workshops, mentorship, screenings and peer exchange.

“Seeing these powerful community stories come to life on screen was incredibly moving,” said Angel Chia, Executive Director of the Hong Kong Academy for Wealth Legacy. “The winning films demonstrate how storytelling can help people better understand the realities and aspirations of different communities. As a flagship annual event of HKAWL’s Impact Link initiative, Inspiring Asia connects creators and social impact organisations with philanthropists and supporters, helping foster dialogue around strategic philanthropy.”

The journey continues as Hong Kong’s winning entries and selected finalists advance to the Main Phase of Inspiring Asia, bringing their Hong Kong stories to audiences across Asia.

The Screening and Award Ceremony marked the festival’s conclusion in the city, but its impact in creating lasting change continues well beyond the event. In particular, The Hong Kong Jockey Club Programme on Social Innovation (HKJCPSI), operated by The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, will provide capacity-building resources to the Best Project Award winner and shortlisted project teams, helping them strengthen their organisational capabilities and advance the community initiatives featured in their films.

Extending the impact further, the stories will continue to resonate across wider audiences through community screenings from October to December 2026, enabling more people to learn about the experiences and issues they bring to light. Screening details will be announced through HKAWL’s official channels.

Appendix: Hong Kong Regional Competition Award Winners

Hashtag: #HKAWL

About The Hong Kong Academy for Wealth Legacy (HKAWL)

Source: BusinessNZ

The Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF) has welcomed agreement by the Australian and New Zealand Governments to implement nine ANZLF member recommendations designed to streamline the trans-Tasman economy.

Moving from concept to implementation, the recommendations focus on removing regulatory barriers, strengthening supply chains, and building joint industrial and defence industry capabilities.

ANZLF Australian Co-Chair John Paitaridis said the agreement marks a significant shift toward practical outcomes.

“Australia and New Zealand have a highly integrated economic relationship, but businesses still encounter unnecessary differences in rules and standards,” Mr Paitaridis said.

“In a more uncertain global environment, having both Governments agree on these priorities allows us to turn shared goals into changes businesses can actually use. Our objective is to ensure the Single Economic Market keeps pace with how our businesses and economies are changing and make an already strong relationship work even better.”

ANZLF New Zealand Co-Chair Greg Lowe emphasised that execution will be the ultimate test.

“Success isn’t agreement on paper, it is fewer barriers, higher productivity, more resilient supply chains, and stronger trans-Tasman capabilities,” Mr Lowe said.

“That is where the ANZLF can add real value. Our members operate across both markets daily. We look forward to working alongside both Governments to identify where changes will make the biggest practical difference and ensure these recommendations deliver real-world momentum and growth.”

The agreement builds on the 2025 and 2026 Australia-New Zealand Leaders’ Meetings, where Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese and Christopher Luxon tasked the ANZLF to develop proposals and subsequently welcomed its plan to strengthen trans-Tasman economic security and the business environment.

The Prime Ministers recognised the ANZLF’s role in bringing the trans-Tasman business community together and confirmed government agencies will continue engaging with the ANZLF, drawing on further recommendations to implement practical measures that ease the costs of doing business and support growth.

About the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum:

The ANZLF brings together senior business and government leaders to deepen the trans-Tasman relationship and drive mutual economic prosperity.

(Left to right) Quade Ewart-Pothoven, Kee’arn Ewart-Pothoven, Rozane Duncan, Marsha Cadman

EIT Head of School, Business, Tourism, Hospitality and English Language, Dr Gareth Allison

(Left to right) Bruce Wattie and Kee’arn Ewart-Pothoven