【TMT Morning Brief】To support the optimization of economic structural transformation, the central bank has introduced eight policy measures; Taiwan Semiconductor's Q4 2025 net profit reached approximately NT$505.7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 35%; Musk: Within three years, the Starship launch frequency will exceed once per hour, with an annual production of 10,000 Starships.

【TMT Summary】The State Council Information Office held a press conference where relevant officials from the People’s Bank of China introduced that, based on current economic and financial conditions, the PBOC will introduce eight policy measures to further assist in optimizing the economic structural transformation.

First, reduce the interest rates of various structural monetary policy tools by 0.25 percentage points. The one-year interest rate for various re-lending will be reduced from the current 1.5% to 1.25%, with other maturity tiers adjusted accordingly.

Second, integrate the use of agricultural and small business relending and rediscount quotas, increase the agricultural and small business relending quota by 500 billion yuan, with a separate allocation within the total quota for private enterprises relending, amounting to 1 trillion yuan, to primarily support medium and small private enterprises.

Third, increase the relending quota for scientific and technological innovation and technological transformation from 800 billion yuan to 1.2 trillion yuan by adding 400 billion yuan, and include private small and medium-sized enterprises with higher R&D investment levels into the supported sectors.

Fourth, consolidate the management of previously established tools supporting private enterprise bond financing and risk-sharing instruments for science and technology innovation bonds, providing a combined relending quota of 200 billion yuan.

Fifth, expand the scope of support for carbon emission reduction tools. Incorporate projects with significant carbon reduction effects such as energy-saving retrofits, green upgrades, and green low-carbon energy transitions, guiding banks to support comprehensive green transformations.

Sixth, broaden the scope of support for service consumption and elderly care relending. In conjunction with health industry standards, incorporate the health industry into the supported fields of service consumption and elderly care relending in a timely manner.

Seventh, together with the financial regulatory authorities, reduce the minimum down payment ratio for commercial property mortgage loans to 30%, to support destocking in the commercial real estate market.

Eighth, encourage financial institutions to enhance their exchange rate risk management services. Diversify exchange rate hedging products to provide enterprises with cost-effective and flexible exchange rate risk management tools.

The key to whether AI can be implemented often does not lie in technological maturity; commercialization is not just about being cheap but depends on whether industry policies and supporting measures are mature, and whether it threatens the vested interests of core industry groups. If AI disrupts the lifeline of traditional operating models in an industry, even if the technology is highly mature, it will be difficult to scale up quickly. Moreover, regulations differ across industries. Therefore, AI itself is not the endgame; applying AI within industries is what truly matters.

— Founder of 3C AGI Partners, Wang Kangman

Although the current Starship was designed by humans, it is expected that starting this year, AI will play a substantial role in rocket engineering, such as helping solve material and design challenges. By 2030, AI intelligence will surpass the combined intelligence of all humanity. This signifies that the proportion of human intelligence in Earth's total intelligence will asymptotically approach 0%, heralding an era dominated by AI.

——SpaceX CEO and CTO, Elon Musk

January 15 news: The Qwen App has announced full integration with Alibaba's ecosystem businesses including Taobao, Alipay, Taobao Flash Purchase, Fliggy, and AutoNavi. It is the world's first to enable AI shopping functions such as ordering food delivery, buying products, and booking flights, and is now open for testing by all users. A few days ago, Google announced its AI shopping collaboration plan with retailers like Walmart, but it has not yet been launched.

January 15 news: Taiwan Semiconductor released its Q4 financial report for 2025. The fourth-quarter net profit was approximately NT$505.7 billion, with earnings per share of NT$19.5, representing a year-on-year increase of 35% for both metrics. In the fourth quarter of 2025, 3nm process shipments accounted for 28% of the company’s wafer sales revenue, while 5nm process shipments accounted for 35%. Shipments of the 7nm process made up 14% of the quarter's wafer sales revenue. Overall, advanced process revenues (including 7nm and more advanced processes) reached 77% of total wafer sales revenue for the quarter.

January 15 news: After more than five years, Xunlei Company and its subsidiary Wangxin Technology have filed a civil lawsuit against former CEO Lei Chen and his core team for 'breach of fiduciary duty,' seeking damages amounting to RMB 200 million. The case has been accepted and registered by the relevant court in Shenzhen. At the heart of this dispute, spanning over five years, is a company named 'Xingronghe.' The plaintiffs allege that this company forms part of a 'shadow system' controlled by former CEO Lei Chen, which facilitated a hidden chain of interest transfers. Xunlei's main demand is to recover about RMB 200 million in assets lost due to improper payments made to Xingronghe.

January 15 news: Recently, online rumors suggested that Xibei plans to close 102 stores nationwide in one go, accounting for 30% of its total number of outlets. When asked about this, Jia Guolong, founder of Xibei Catering, confirmed that the information was true.

January 15 news: Elon Musk stated on social media that within three years, the Starship launch frequency will exceed once per hour, explicitly setting SpaceX's ultimate goal as producing 10,000 Starships annually.

January 15 news: Blackrock absorbed $342 billion in client funds during the fourth quarter, increasing its asset management scale to a record $14 trillion. The company is integrating a series of recent acquisitions to accelerate expansion into private market sectors. In a statement released Thursday detailing annual and quarterly performance, Blackrock revealed that investors poured $268 billion into its long-term investment funds in Q4, with $181 billion flowing into ETF business, bringing total ETF size to $5.5 trillion. Strong inflows in the last three months of the year pushed total inflows, including money market funds and cash management funds, to $698 billion for the year, setting a new historical high.

January 15 news: The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued an opinion on further improving work related to enterprise annuities, enhancing the inclusiveness, flexibility, and convenience of the enterprise annuity system, and continuously promoting the expansion of coverage so that more employees can benefit from enterprise annuities.

According to the opinion, various enterprises, social organizations, foundations, private non-enterprise units, and other eligible employers and their employees can establish enterprise annuities according to regulations.

Regarding establishment procedures, if the employer has already set up a staff congress system, the enterprise annuity plan should be submitted to the staff congress for discussion and approval; if no staff congress system exists, the enterprise annuity plan may pass through alternative democratic procedures such as discussions with all employees and public disclosure.

In terms of contribution rates, employers and their employees can flexibly choose the contribution rate or amount within the contribution limit. Those with limited financial capacity can start with a lower contribution rate or amount and then gradually increase it.

In terms of establishment methods, employers can set up individual corporate pension plans or opt to participate in corporate pension pooled plans initiated by legal trustees. Efforts will be made to explore simplified procedures based on pooled plans to facilitate the establishment of corporate pensions for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Moreover, the opinion proposes selecting some eligible parks (industrial parks, industrial zones, reform pilot zones, economic and technological development zones, science and technology startup parks, etc.) to carry out trials to expand corporate pension coverage and accelerate the construction of a national corporate pension information platform and database.

On January 15th, the General Office of Wuhan Municipal People's Government issued a notice on the implementation plan for accelerating the development of the OpenHarmony ecosystem in Wuhan. By 2027, 100 OpenHarmony demonstration scenarios will be implemented, four industry-level OpenHarmony operating systems will be developed, 200 OpenHarmony application software will be completed, 50 terminal devices will be adapted to OpenHarmony, and more than 100,000 OpenHarmony developers will be nurtured. Wuhan aims to become a significant base for OpenHarmony technology and industrial innovation nationwide, creating an 'OpenHarmony Ecosystem Wuhan Model' to lay a solid foundation for a billion-yuan IoT industry in Wuhan.

On January 15th, the Shenzhen Industry and Information Technology Bureau released the 'Shenzhen Action Plan for Leading the OPC Startup Ecosystem in Artificial Intelligence (2026-2027)'. The plan emphasizes strengthening industrial policy supply. Both municipal and district levels will increase support for the OPC community, utilizing funding policies to connect comprehensive resources and fully ensure efficient daily operations, ecosystem building, and enterprise services. Districts are encouraged to provide zero-threshold 'Smart Vouchers' to companies based on the scale of businesses within the OPC community to offset early-stage costs like computing power, models, and datasets. Companies can also apply for national AI vouchers ('Computing Power Vouchers'). Leveraging municipal AI industry policies, companies may receive up to 10 million yuan in 'Training Power Vouchers', 2 million yuan in 'Model Vouchers', and 2 million yuan in 'Dataset Vouchers' to fund R&D activities such as model training, intelligent agent setup, and API usage. Assistance will be provided to foster ecosystem integration among enterprises, creating a new industrial chain where 'upstairs and downstairs are part of the upstream and downstream,' establishing an active ecosystem for integrated business growth.

On January 15th, after research, it was decided that starting from the settlement at the close of trading on January 15, 2026 (Thursday), the trading margin ratio and price limit fluctuation will be adjusted as follows: the price limit fluctuation for tin futures contracts will be adjusted to 11%, the trading margin ratio for hedging positions will be adjusted to 12%, and the trading margin ratio for regular positions will be adjusted to 13%. Other matters concerning the trading margin ratio and price limit fluctuation will follow the 'Shanghai Futures Exchange Risk Control Management Measures' and related business rules. According to relevant provisions of the 'Shanghai Futures Exchange Risk Control Management Measures,' starting from trading on January 16, 2026 (i.e., the night session on January 15), non-futures company members, overseas special non-brokerage participants, and clients’ maximum number of intraday opening trades for all tin futures contracts will be 800 lots. The maximum intraday opening trade volume for actual controller relationship account groups will be executed per single client. Opening trade volumes for hedging transactions and market-making trades are not subject to this restriction.

On January 15th, with the continuous rise in gold prices and inflow of funds, China has welcomed its first gold ETF surpassing 100 billion yuan. Wind data shows that as of January 14th, the scale of Huatai-PineBridge Gold ETF broke through the 100 billion yuan mark, reaching 100.762 billion yuan, increasing by 1.413 billion yuan compared to the previous day, with a total fund share of 10.162 billion units. Since 2025, the fund's scale has increased by 72.106 billion yuan, more than tripling. Similarly, the combined scale of seven ETFs tracking SGE Gold 9999 has reached 231.151 billion yuan. Besides Huatai-PineBridge Gold ETF, the latest scales of E Fund Gold ETF, Bosera Gold ETF, and Guotai Gold ETF have also exceeded 30 billion yuan, standing at 38.71 billion yuan, 37.147 billion yuan, and 32.584 billion yuan respectively.

On January 15th, J&T Express (1519.HK) and SF Holding (002352.SZ, 6936.HK) jointly announced they have reached a strategic reciprocal shareholding agreement, under which both parties will issue new shares to each other, with the investment transaction amounting to HKD 8.3 billion. According to the agreement, J&T Express will issue 822 million B-class shares to SF Holding at HKD 10.10 per share; SF Holding will issue 226 million H shares to J&T Express at HKD 36.74 per share. After the transaction is completed, SF Holding will hold 10% of J&T Express shares, and J&T Express will hold 4.29% of SF Holding shares. Li Jie, founder of J&T Express, and Wang Wei, founder of SF Holding, jointly stated that both parties will collaborate to build a more efficient global smart logistics network, effectively seizing the historic opportunities brought by Chinese enterprises going global and the cross-border e-commerce boom.

On January 15th, Vanke Enterprise Co., Ltd. issued a supplementary notice, adding two new motions to the first bondholders' meeting of the “21 Vanke 02” housing rental special corporate bond in 2026. It is reported that the outstanding balance of the “21 Vanke 02” bond is 1.1 billion yuan, with the interest commencement date being January 22, 2021, a term of 7 years, and includes the issuer’s redemption option, coupon rate adjustment option, and investors' put option at the end of the 5th year. The maturity date of the bond is January 22, 2028. According to the issuance terms, if the issuer exercises the redemption option or investors exercise the put option, the corresponding payment date will be January 22, 2026. The announcement shows that to protect the interests of bondholders, the two newly added motions are 'Motion Four: Proposal on Adjusting the Principal and Interest Payment Arrangement for the Put Portion of “21 Vanke 02,” Adding Fixed Payment Arrangements, and Providing Credit Enhancement Measures' and 'Motion Five: Proposal on Agreeing to Add a Grace Period for the Put Portion of “21 Vanke 02,” Adding Fixed Payment Arrangements, and Adjusting Principal and Interest Payment Arrangements.'

On January 15th, the central bank released the 2025 financial data report. As of the end of December, the M2 balance was 340.29 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.5%, rising by 0.5 percentage points from the previous month. The M1 balance was 115.51 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.8%, falling by 1.1 percentage points from the previous month. The M0 balance saw a year-on-year increase of 10.2%. For the whole of 2025, the cumulative increment of social financing scale was 35.6 trillion yuan, 3.34 trillion yuan more than the previous year. In the social financing scale increment, direct financing reached 16.7 trillion yuan, accounting for 46.9%, which is 7.8 percentage points higher than the last year of the '13th Five-Year Plan' (2020). The total increase in RMB deposits for the year was 26.41 trillion yuan; the increase in RMB loans was 16.27 trillion yuan.

According to data released by the Passenger Car Association on January 15, the pickup truck market sold 52,000 units in December 2025, a year-on-year increase of 8.8%, which is at a high level over the past five years. From January to December 2025, the pickup truck market sold 589,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 11.8%. In December 2025, the production of pickup trucks was 48,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 5.2%, which is at a medium to high level over the past five years. From January to December 2025, the production volume of the pickup truck market reached 575,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 14%.

Data on January 15 showed that since September 2025, the price of DDR5 memory has risen more than 300%, and DDR4 memory prices have increased by over 150%. Industry insiders stated that this round of memory price hikes is due to the wave of storage demand triggered by AI. Industry research shows that the memory requirements of AI servers are 8-10 times higher than those of ordinary servers, and such massive demand has led to AI servers consuming 53% of the global monthly memory production capacity, directly squeezing the capacity allocation for consumer-grade memory. Major global cloud service providers have placed huge procurement orders. Reports indicate that the memory market has entered a 'super bull market' phase, with current trends even surpassing the historical peak in 2018.

(Compiled from CCTV News, Xinhua News Agency, CCTV Finance, First Financial, China News Weekly, etc.)

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