Tencent dips on Canada clamp

Tencent (0007) fell 2 percent after Canada banned the Chinese messaging app WeChat and Russian antivirus program Kaspersky on government-issued mobile devices due to privacy and security risks.

The Treasury Board of Canada, which oversees public administration, said it has no evidence that government information has been compromised, but the collection methods of the applications provide considerable access to a device's contents, and risks of using them were "clear."

Meanwhile, as many as 80 percent of Chinese tech companies are using Alibaba Cloud, Alibaba (9988) said yesterday.

It has updated its artificial intelligence model Tongyi Qianwen and released a suite of industry-specific AI models amid an intensifying AI race among tech firms.

In other news, Alibaba-owned Quark was fined for carrying obscene content and NetEase's (9999) livestream platform NetEase CC was also ordered to suspend some of its dance content for seven days over vulgar content.

Reuters and staff reporter