{"id":285640,"date":"2026-02-15T18:54:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T18:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/285640\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T18:54:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T18:54:14","slug":"beijing-warns-tech-giants-to-curb-involution-amid-ai-giveaway-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/285640\/","title":{"rendered":"Beijing warns tech giants to curb \u2018involution\u2019 amid AI giveaway war"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>China\u2019s top market regulator has summoned the country\u2019s leading tech companies to demand an end to \u201cinvolutionary\u201d competition, at the time when the companies are pouring billions of yuan into a Lunar New Year promotional blitz to win over users for services including <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/artificial-intelligence?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">artificial intelligence<\/a> apps.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The SAMR \u201creminded\u201d the platforms to \u201cfurther regulate promotional activities\u201d and stay clear of \u201call forms of involutionary competition\u201d, it said, without naming any exact activities conducted by the companies.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The companies should \u201cjointly uphold a fair and competitive market environment to foster innovation and healthy development within the platform economy\u201d, the regulator added.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The word \u201cinvolution\u201d, or neijuan, refers to cutthroat, low-quality price competition in sectors ranging from electric vehicles to food delivery. It has become a common term in China over the past few years, with Beijing vowing to combat the phenomenon because of its damaging economic effects.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">China\u2019s tech giants have been locked in an intensifying giveaway battle before the Lunar New Year, one of the year\u2019s most critical shopping periods, to attract users for their services, especially AI apps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China\u2019s top market regulator has summoned the country\u2019s leading tech companies to demand an end to \u201cinvolutionary\u201d competition,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,91566,619,8180,363,364,8517,610,607,115689,94864,20795,36562,54345,111,139,69,159051,159052,6086,145,20009],"class_list":["post-285640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-ai-apps","tag-alibaba","tag-alibaba-group-holding","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-baidu","tag-bytedance","tag-china","tag-didi-chuxing","tag-douyin","tag-jd-com","tag-lunar-new-year","tag-meituan","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-samr","tag-sf-express","tag-state-administration-for-market-regulation","tag-technology","tag-tencent-holdings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}