Chinese AI, EV players boost HK stocks to an over three-year high

Hong Kong stocks climbed further to a more than three-year high, driven by the latest business updates from Chinese artificial intelligence giants and electric vehicle makers.

The market benchmark Hang Seng Index ended Tuesday at 24,740 – about 595 points or 2.46 percent higher than the previous close – with a full-day main board turnover of HK$285.93 billion.

The indicator once hit as high as 24,745 in the afternoon session.

The Hang Seng Tech Index leapt 3.96 percent to 6,105 points while the China Enterprises Index increased by 2.79 percent to 9,177.8 points.

Shenzhen Dobot (2432) surged 28.16 percent after debuting a 199,000 yuan (HK$213,751) full-sized humanoid robot. Midea Group (0300) also increased by 10 percent on its first humanoid robot that it claims is capable of performing various actions and understanding voice commands to execute corresponding tasks.

AI is another driver. Alibaba (9988) leapt 5.9 percent on the back of a plan to evaluate team performance with their achievements via AI. Baidu (9888) grew 10.9 percent following its release of a new open-source AI model. Tencent (0700), which unveiled five new fully open-source 3-dimension generation models towards the end of trading, rose 3.34 percent.

EV makers jumped, with Nio (9866) rising by 8.9 percent on its strategic partnership with CATL for battery swapping and BYD (1211) up by 3.94 percent on a new faster-charging platform.

In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite Index closed at 3,429, up by three points or 0.11 percent, hitting a new high for over three months. The Shenzhen Component Index gained 56 points or 0.52 percent to 11,014.

STAFF REPORTER