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<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="461" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/108083800-17363625762025-01-08t185239z_2145872781_rc2u5ca99h17_rtrmadp_0_usa-court-tiktok-820x461.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-575022" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/108083800-17363625762025-01-08t185239z_2145872781_rc2u5ca99h17_rtrmadp_0_usa-court-tiktok-820x461.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/108083800-17363625762025-01-08t185239z_2145872781_rc2u5ca99h17_rtrmadp_0_usa-court-tiktok-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/108083800-17363625762025-01-08t185239z_2145872781_rc2u5ca99h17_rtrmadp_0_usa-court-tiktok-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/108083800-17363625762025-01-08t185239z_2145872781_rc2u5ca99h17_rtrmadp_0_usa-court-tiktok-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/108083800-17363625762025-01-08t185239z_2145872781_rc2u5ca99h17_rtrmadp_0_usa-court-tiktok-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/108083800-17363625762025-01-08t185239z_2145872781_rc2u5ca99h17_rtrmadp_0_usa-court-tiktok.jpeg 1600w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Dado Ruvic | Reuters</figcaption></figure>



Chinese social media app RedNote has skyrocketed to the top of Apple’s app store, underscoring concerns that TikTok will soon be effectively banned in the U.S.



RedNote, or Xiaohongshu, as it’s known in China, is the No. 1 free app on the Apple app store as of Monday, followed by TikTok’s photo-sharing Lemon8 app and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.



Many TikTok creators are rushing to find alternatives where they can continue posting videos while waiting to see what happens with TikTok, which faces a potential Jan. 19 ban in the U.S. The Supreme Court held oral arguments last week about the April law setting the stage for a ban, and seemed to side more favorably with the U.S. government’s arguments that ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok poses a national security risk.



Attorneys representing TikTok and creators argued that the law violates the free-speech protections of millions of its U.S. users.



If the Supreme Court upholds the law, third-party service providers such as Apple and Google will be penalized for supporting TikTok, thus effectively banning the app in the U.S. It’s unclear whether President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, would choose to enforce the law.



Some TikTok creators are enacting contingency plans by migrating to RedNote.



One content creator, who goes by the username allieusyaps, said in a post Monday that while “it’s OK” that TikTok could be banned in the U.S., he and other TikTok creators “aren’t going back to Instagram and Facebook,” because they joined RedNote.



“Look I might not have a job in the next week, but we about to learn Mandarin baby!” the user wrote.



Another TikTok creator named Krystan Walmsley posted a short video teaching people how to set up and decorate their RedNote accounts.



“This app is so cute and it’s a lot of fun so far,” Walmsley said.



RedNote, based in Shanghai, was founded in 2013, and has increasingly challenged Alibaba and Douyin, ByteDance’s version of TikTok in China, in e-commerce and social media. It had about 300 million monthly active users as of July 2024, according to a report by the South China Morning Post.



RedNote was valued at $17 billion after raising funding in July from investors such as Boyu Capital and HongShan Capital Group, formerly Sequoia Capital’s Chinese investment arm, according to PitchBook. It’s raised over $900 million in total funding and has more than 2,000 employees, PitchBook said.



Representatives from RedNote and TikTok didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

108083800-17363625762025-01-08t185239z_2145872781_rc2u5ca99h17_rtrmadp_0_usa-court-tiktok

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<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="461" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/107316539-1697159674866-gettyimages-1720140335-fc_1113145-1-820x461.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-574781" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/107316539-1697159674866-gettyimages-1720140335-fc_1113145-1-820x461.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/107316539-1697159674866-gettyimages-1720140335-fc_1113145-1-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/107316539-1697159674866-gettyimages-1720140335-fc_1113145-1-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/107316539-1697159674866-gettyimages-1720140335-fc_1113145-1-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/107316539-1697159674866-gettyimages-1720140335-fc_1113145-1-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/107316539-1697159674866-gettyimages-1720140335-fc_1113145-1.jpeg 1600w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">An aerial view of a container ship leaving the dockyard in Qingdao in east China’s Shandong province. Future Publishing | Future Publishing | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



China’s trade data in December beat expectations by a large margin, with exporters continuing to frontload shipments as worries over additional tariffs mount, while the country’s stimulus measures appear to be supporting demand in the industrial sector.



Exports in December jumped 10.7% in U.S. dollar terms from a year earlier, data from China’s customs authority showed Monday, beating expectations of a 7.3% growth in a Reuters poll. That compares with a 6.7% growth in November and a spike of 12.7% in October.



Customs data showed imports rose 1.0% last month from a year earlier, reversing from the contraction in the preceding two months. Analysts had forecast imports to fall 1.5% on year. That compares with a bigger drop of 3.9% in November and 2.3% in October.



Last year, China’s yuan-denominated total exports jumped 7.1% from the previous year, accelerating from a modest growth of 0.6% in 2023, customs officials said at a press conference on Monday.



China’s imports last year rose 2.3%, picking up from a fall of 0.3% in 2023.



“Outbound shipments are likely to stay resilient in the near-term, supported by further gains in the global market share,” Zichun Huang, China economist at Capital Economics, said in a note, thanks to a weak yuan.



The outlook for exports for the full year, however, appears less optimistic, as “potential tariff hikes could dampen momentum,” said Bruce Pang, distinguished senior research fellow at the National Institution for Finance and Development.



“In the short term, import volumes are also expected to rebound further, driven by stronger demand for industrial commodities, with accelerated fiscal spending,” Pang added.



China’s domestic demand has been hit due to a prolonged real estate crisis, leaving the country more reliant on exports to power its growth.



Economists expect exports to have significantly supported China’s economic growth last year. The country’s full-year GDP data is due later this week.



Exports have been a rare bright spot in China’s battered economy amid heightened trade tensions with its major trading partners — U.S., European Union — but this growth could be jeopardized after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.



This year, China will need to focus more on boosting domestic demand as external momentum fades, Gary Ng, senior economist at Natixis told CNBC in an email. “China’s deflationary pressure in the manufacturing sector may continue to fuel more geopolitical tensions,” he added.



Weak consumer sentiment, uneven recovery in real estate and tepid growth in local government infrastructure projects continue to slow down domestic demand recovery, Ng said.



In December, shipments to most markets climbed, with double-digit increases to the Association of Southeast Asian Nation and the U.S., where exports grew 18.9% and 15.6%, respectively, from a year earlier, according to CNBC’s calculations of the official customs data.



Imports from the U.S. in December rose 2.6% and ASEAN — China’s largest trading partner — were up 5.4%.



Exports to the European Union rose 8.76% while imports fell 4.9%. The country’s exports to BRICS partner Russia were up 5.5% while imports shrank 4.7%.



Last year, China’s exports of electric vehicles and semiconductors increased 13.1% and 18.7% last year, respectively, according to the customs officials.



Meanwhile, the country’s steel exports hit the highest level since 2015, with shipments hitting 110.7 million tons, as the country strived to make up for weak domestic demand due to a property crisis and a slowdown in manufacturing activities.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-residue-of-caution"><a></a>‘A residue of caution’</h2>



Trump — who is set to take office on Jan. 20 — has stoked fears about higher tariffs on Chinese exports. He has pledged an additional 10% tariffs on all Chinese goods entering the U.S.



Chinese authorities have since late September ramped up policy support to prop up the country’s economy as growth staggers and social tensions mount. But “a residue of caution and restraint remains,” Gabriel Wildau, managing director at Teneo said in a note last Friday.



China has cut policy rates, loosened property purchase restrictions, injected liquidity into the financial market as well as unveiled a debt-swap program to alleviate local governments’ fiscal strains.



“Though top leaders recognize the need to boost real GDP growth, Xi still appears reluctant to embrace the additional degree of stimulus required to combat deflation,” Wildau added.



“Policymakers need to keep some stimulus powder dry to enable an ample response if the tariff impact is severe,” he said, suggesting that the uncertainty about exports growth creates an additional reason for Beijing to avoid a “big bang approach.”



Among a slew of key economic data on tap this week, China is set to release its full-year as well as fourth-quarter GDP figures on Friday. The growth is pegged at 5.1% year on year in the final quarter of 2024, according to a Reuters poll.



For this year, the top leadership pledged to make boosting domestic consumption a top priority while expanding fiscal spending to fund the consumer goods trade-in and equipment upgrade policy. Launched in July last year, the trade-in program subsidizes consumers to swap old cars or home appliances and buy new ones at a discount.

107316539-1697159674866-gettyimages-1720140335-fc_1113145 (1)

China’s imports post surprise growth in December; exports beat expectations as higher tariffs loom

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="461" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/108038935-17272715482024-09-25t132450z_828786131_rc2p7aapgnt6_rtrmadp_0_un-assembly-starmer-820x461.png" alt="" class="wp-image-574742" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/108038935-17272715482024-09-25t132450z_828786131_rc2p7aapgnt6_rtrmadp_0_un-assembly-starmer-820x461.png 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/108038935-17272715482024-09-25t132450z_828786131_rc2p7aapgnt6_rtrmadp_0_un-assembly-starmer-300x169.png 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/108038935-17272715482024-09-25t132450z_828786131_rc2p7aapgnt6_rtrmadp_0_un-assembly-starmer-160x90.png 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/108038935-17272715482024-09-25t132450z_828786131_rc2p7aapgnt6_rtrmadp_0_un-assembly-starmer-768x432.png 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/108038935-17272715482024-09-25t132450z_828786131_rc2p7aapgnt6_rtrmadp_0_un-assembly-starmer.png 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer gives a media interview while attending the 79th United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, U.S. September 25, 2024. Leon Neal | Via Reuters</figcaption></figure>



LONDON — The U.K is looking to build a homegrown challenger to OpenAI and drastically increase national computing infrastructure, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government sets its sights on becoming a global leader in artificial intelligence.



Starmer is set to visit Bristol, England, on Monday to announce the pledge, which follows work done by British tech investor Matt Clifford to establish an “AI Opportunities Action Plan.” The plan aims to help the U.K. take advantage of the potential of AI.



The government is primarily seeking to expand data center capacity across the U.K. to boost developers of powerful AI models which rely on high-performance computing equipment hosted in remote locations to train and run their systems.



A target of increasing “sovereign,” or public sector, compute capacity in the U.K. by twentyfold by 2030 has been set. As part of that pledge, the government will begin opening access to the AI Research Resource, an initiative aimed at bolstering U.K. computing infrastructure.



Starmer’s administration last year canceled £1.3 billion of taxpayer-funded spending commitments towards two significant computing initiatives in order to prioritize other fiscal plans. The projects, an AI Research Resource and a next-generation “exascale” supercomputer, were pledges were made under Starmer’s predecessor, Rishi Sunak.



Sovereign AI has become a hot topic for policymakers, particularly in Europe. The term refers to the idea that technologies critical to economic growth and national security should be built and developed in the countries people are adopting them in.



To further bolster Britain’s computing infrastructure, the government also committed to setting up several AI “growth zones,” where rules on planning permission will be relaxed in certain places to allow for the creation of new data centers.



Meanwhile, an “AI Energy Council” formed of industry leaders from both energy and AI will be set up to explore the role of renewable and low-carbon sources of energy, like nuclear.



It comes as tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft and Google are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in small modular reactors (SMR) to provide nuclear energy for the data centers that power their AI systems.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-building-a-challenger-to-openai"><a></a>Building a challenger to OpenAI</h2>



The last major initiative the U.K. government proposed was to create homegrown AI “champions” of&nbsp;a&nbsp;similar scale to American tech giants responsible for the foundational AI models that power today’s generative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.



Britain plans to use the AI growth zones and a newly established National Data Library to connect public institutions — such as universities — to enhance the country’s ability to create “sovereign” AI models which aren’t reliant on Silicon Valley.



It’s worth highlighting that the U.K. faces serious challenges in its bid to create an effective OpenAI alternative. For one, several entrepreneurs in the country have bemoaned funding challenges that make it difficult for startups in the country to raise the kind of cash available to AI success stories.



Many U.K. founders and venture capitalists have called for the country’s pension funds to allocate a greater portion of their portfolios toward riskier, growth-focused startups — a reform the government has committed to pushing previously.



“In the U.K., there’s $7 trillion in this pocket,” Magnus Grimeland, CEO and founder of venture capital firm Antler, told CNBC in an interview last year. “Imagine if you take just 5% of that and allocate it to innovation — you solve the problem.”



U.K. tech leaders have nevertheless generally praised the government’s AI action plan. Zahra Bahrololoumi, Salesforce’s U.K. boss, told CNBC the plan is a “forward-thinking strategy,” adding she’s encouraged by the government’s “bold vision for AI and emphasis on transparency, safety and collaboration.”



Chintan Patel, Cisco’s chief technology officer in the U.K., said he’s “encouraged” by the action plan. “Having a clearly defined roadmap is critical for the UK to achieve its ambition to become an AI superpower and a leading destination for AI investment,” he said.



Britain doesn’t yet have formal regulations for AI. Starmer’s government has previously said it plans to draw up legislation for AI — but details remain thin.



Last month, the government announced a consultation on measures to regulate the use of copyrighted content to train AI models.



More generally, the U.K. is pitching a differentiated regulatory regime from the EU following Brexit as a positive factor — meaning, it can introduce regulatory oversight for AI but in a way that’s less strict than the EU, which has taken a more hard-line approach to regulating the technology with its AI Act.

108038935-17272715482024-09-25t132450z_828786131_rc2p7aapgnt6_rtrmadp_0_un-assembly-starmer

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