1. No more tax-free? Chinese regulators pledged to step up oversight of the country’s live streaming platforms, a stark warning to an industry that’s come under fire in recent years for tax evasion and content violations. (Bloomberg Law)
2. Big new initiative to know about. Chinese telecommunications companies will join the newest “east-to-west computing resource transfer” initiative, building infrastructure to send data from coastal cities westward to inland computing centers for processing. The project would involve 10 data center clusters linking western provinces to eastern population hubs. The notion is to free up eastern computing resources for nascent real-time applications like connected cars, telemedicine and smart manufacturing while data centers in western provinces, where electricity and land is cheaper, handle less time sensitive tasks like offline analysis and storage. (NikkeiAsia)
3. Alibaba International Station announced that it will ban the sale of e-cigarettes starting May 1, 2022. The ban will include cartridges and smoking sets for e-cigs and other related products. (Pandaily)
4. Amidst the lockdowns in the mainland, e-commerce platforms such as Douyin E-commerce and Xiaohongshu have supported grocery delivery services in different forms and introduced a series of services for their customers, logistics, and small and medium-sized businesses. (Dao insights)
5. Alibaba’s own metaverse? Alibaba is leading a $60 million investment round in Chinese AR glasses maker Nreal, as major internet companies continue to elbow their way into the metaverse realm. (China Daily)
6. The 2022 Asian Games, to be held in September in Hangzhou, released a series of digital franchises named “Asian Games in China” on Alipay mini-program, powered by AntChain’s digital collectible solution. (Technode)
7. Shanghai rolled out 12 measures on Saturday to assist the healthy development of technological SMEs during the covid surge. This includes the expedited approval of applications for and cashing in of science and technology innovation vouchers worth up to 500,000 yuan (US$78,578). (CGTN)
8.More digital collectibles? An agency under China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has plans to create its own digital collectibles, as more local players start to explore the use of NFTs. (South China Morning Post)
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