Technology

Global Sources Hong Kong Shows Phase II Officially Opens, AI Products Go Mainstream as Humanoid Robot Zone Makes Its Debut

Published

2 months ago

April 18, 2026

HONG KONG, April 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Phase II of the Global Sources Hong Kong Shows opened today at AsiaWorld-Expo, running from 18 to 21 April over four consecutive days. The show comprises four major professional trade shows: the Mobile Electronics Show, the Smart Home, Security & Home Appliances Show, the Lifestyle Show, and the Home & Kitchen Show, bringing together over 2,000 quality suppliers across nearly 4,000 booths and showcasing approximately 150,000 new products spanning mobile devices, smart wearables, AR/VR, smart home solutions, personal healthcare, pet products and more. Notably, the number of mobile accessories exhibitors has grown by 50% compared with the same period in 2025. As of March, global pre-registered buyers grew 35% year on year, with particularly strong increases from Eastern Europe, Western Europe, the United States and ASEAN.

Global Sources Hong Kong Shows Phase II includes:

Global Sources Mobile ElectronicsGlobal Sources Smart Home, Security & Home AppliancesGlobal Sources LifestyleGlobal Sources Home & Kitchen

As the global consumer electronics industry undergoes a structural transformation driven by AI, Hong Kong’s role as an international sourcing hub is evolving in tandem. John Kao, Vice President of Hong Kong Shows & Overseas Shows at Global Sources, said: “AI is moving from concept to mass production — the wave of technology reshaping products has arrived. The biggest change at this year’s show is that AI is no longer confined to a standalone tech zone; it has permeated virtually every product category, from smart wearables and home security to personal healthcare. AI has become the core driving force behind product upgrades. For global buyers, this is a pivotal opportunity to lock in future product trends and uncover new growth opportunities.”

AI Products Reach Market Faster — Over 1,200 Booths Dedicated to AI
The “AI Pavilion”, where the AI products most readily making their way into everyday life, brings together over 1,200 booths showcasing smart products with proven mass-production capabilities across seven key segments: AI terminal devices, AI wearables, AI glasses, AI toys, AI pet products, AI personal healthcare and AI convergence products, offering a one-stop overview of the latest breakthroughs in AI hardware ecosystems. The zone also introduces the “Physical.ai Lab” for the first time. In line with China’s designation of humanoid robots as a strategic emerging industry, the lab showcases robot products that have already entered the commercialisation stage, including humanoid robots, embodied intelligent robots, robotic lawn mowers and educational robots, marking the full extension of AI decision-making capabilities from virtual spaces into complex physical mobility and operational scenarios. For global buyers, this is not merely a technology showcase but a sourcing opportunity for commercially viable automation solutions.

AI is redefining the product logic of traditional consumer electronics — transforming what were once function-driven products that simply executed commands into “demand-sensing products” capable of interpreting user behaviour and delivering personalised services, illustrating the entirely new industry landscape that emerges when AI becomes a product standard. At the same time, exhibits in traditional category zones demonstrate the deep-rooted strengths of the supply chain, with a focus on energy efficiency improvements, design optimisation, material upgrades and manufacturing process refinements, reflecting mature capabilities in scaled production, lean manufacturing and global fulfilment.

Innovation Awards Introduce “AI Innovation Award” — Global Product Launches Converge on Hong Kong
The Global Sources Innovation Awards for Phase II spotlight products across mobile electronics, smart home, security and appliances, and lifestyle categories, recognising outstanding innovations in practicality, cost-effectiveness, technological maturity and market relevance. Global Sources once again partners with the internationally renowned “European Product Design Award (EPDA)™” to present the “Best Product Design Award”, honouring products that stand out through innovative thinking and exceptional design. To align with AI’s emergence as an industry mainstay, Phase II introduces the “AI Innovation Award”, recognising exhibits that demonstrate excellence in AI technology application.

In addition, Phase II host multiple new product launch events, with numerous exhibitors using this platform to unveil their annual innovations, including heavyweight global and Asian debuts that further cement the Hong Kong Shows’ position as the world’s premier stage for consumer electronics product launches.

Industry Leaders Gather to Decode AI-Enabled Business Pathways
Running concurrently with the show, the Global Sources Summit and “AI & Robotics Summit (AIRS)” bring together leading global industry experts to explore cutting-edge topics including AI-driven retail markets, smart sourcing strategies, operational intelligence, consumer insights and next-generation technology innovation, providing in-depth analysis of how AI is restructuring the consumer electronics value chain and helping the industry seize business opportunities in the shift from “smart” to “intelligent”. The summit programme features “The AI Gold Rush” session on 19 April and the “Consumer Tech Futures” session on 20 April. An on-site AI robot demonstration area allows visitors to experience human-machine interaction and live demonstrations up close, including a performance by Linkerbot’s robot band and dance and kung fu demonstrations by Unitree robots, showcasing advanced capabilities in motion planning and real-time control while exploring the commercial potential of robotics in entertainment, services and beyond.

Comprehensive Buyer Service Upgrades Drive Precise Matching and Trade Collaboration
To further enhance the buyer sourcing experience, this edition of the show introduces a number of new services. The upgraded Business Matching service is expected to arrange over 3,000 buyer-supplier matching sessions across all three phases, facilitating collaboration between global buyers with clear sourcing intent and quality suppliers. A Sourcing Connection Desk has been set up on-site for the first time, providing comprehensive support to help buyers locate target exhibitors and arrange on-the-spot matching — offering real-time assistance for buyers who were unable to book appointments in advance. In addition, the Hong Kong Show website has launched a new Meet the Exhibitors page, allowing buyers to search by show, product, country or region, with features to contact exhibitors and add events to their calendars for more effective sourcing trip planning. The Global Sources Buyer App has also been fully optimised to deliver a simpler, more personalised user experience that puts information at buyers’ fingertips. The show expects to welcome close to 900 new overseas buyers to participate in on-site matching and networking activities, including high-quality buyers from Western Europe, the United States, Japan and ASEAN.

About Global Sources
Based in Hong Kong, Global Sources is a globally recognised B2B sourcing platform. With 55 years of dedicated service in facilitating international trade, it has earned the trust and recognition of the global business community through its proven track record of connecting quality buyers worldwide with verified top-tier Asian manufacturers. As a sourcing hub for market-ready innovative consumer products, Global Sources provides efficient and convenient trade services to over 14 million registered buyers and users worldwide.

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SOURCE Global Sources

Technology

Bloomberg Introduces Spread-to-Benchmark Quoting for EUR and GBP Portfolio Trading Baskets

Published

16 hours ago

June 2, 2026

LONDON, June 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Bloomberg today announced the launch of Spread-to-Benchmark quoting and trading for Euro (EUR) and Sterling (GBP) denominated portfolio trades through its Portfolio Trading Basket Builder (PTBB). The new functionality expands the range of quoting protocols available for European credit portfolio trading and reflects growing client demand for spread-based execution workflows, alongside increased dealer support for the convention across EUR and GBP markets.

Spread-to-Benchmark quoting is a well-established protocol for USD credit portfolio trades and is used by market participants to evaluate and execute portfolio trades. By extending this workflow to EUR and GBP portfolio trades, Bloomberg enables clients and dealers to transact using a familiar spread-based methodology across additional credit markets.

The introduction of Spread-to-Benchmark quoting for EUR and GBP baskets reflects increased client interest in evaluating portfolio trades through a spread-based lens and the growing adoption of spread-based execution workflows in European credit markets. The workflow provides market participants with an additional framework for assessing the relationship between credit spread risk and underlying government bond yields when pricing and executing portfolio trades.

Additional Workflow Flexibility 
The workflow complements Bloomberg’s existing portfolio trading capabilities, which support the full range of market-standard quoting conventions, including Price, Yield, Spread-to-Benchmark and Spread based workflows that reference Bloomberg’s evaluated pricing service (BVAL). This gives clients flexibility to compare and execute portfolio trades using the quoting methodology that best aligns with their investment objectives, execution preferences and internal risk management processes.

“European credit clients continue to look for execution workflows that reflect how they evaluate risk and monitor portfolio trading outcomes,” said Harry Street, Global Head of Credit and Equities Trading Product at Bloomberg. “By expanding dealer support for Spread-to-Benchmark quoting for EUR and GBP baskets, Bloomberg is broadening the range of workflow options available to clients trading European credit portfolios.”

“Portfolio trading workflows in fixed income continue to become more sophisticated as institutional investors look for ways to evaluate execution quality in changing market conditions,” said Kevin McPartland, Head of Market Structure & Technology Research at Crisil Coalition Greenwich. “Spread-based quoting helps market participants more clearly distinguish between the impacts of credit spread and underlying rates movements when determining how best to execute a portfolio trade.”

Bloomberg’s Electronic Markets solutions are used by leading financial institutions to trade efficiently in over 175 markets around the world. More than 9,000 client firms use Bloomberg Electronic Markets to access industry-leading depth and breadth of liquidity across asset classes from over 800 dealers globally. Bloomberg Electronic Markets provides market participants with comprehensive solutions across the trading lifecycle, including robust price transparency, analytics, automation and execution, powered by Bloomberg’s high-quality, multi-asset class data and tools.

About Bloomberg
Bloomberg is a global leader in business and financial information, delivering trusted data, news, and insights that bring transparency, efficiency, and fairness to markets. The company helps connect influential communities across the global financial ecosystem via reliable technology solutions that enable our customers to make more informed decisions and foster better collaboration. For more information, visit Bloomberg.com/company or request a demo.

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SOURCE Bloomberg L.P.

Technology

Dr. Sunho Kang, a senior battery-technology executive with leadership experience at major global battery and EV manufacturers, joins TeraWatt Technology as Head of Product and Technology

Published

16 hours ago

June 2, 2026

SAN FRANCISCO, June 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — TeraWatt Technology Inc. (Headquartered in California, USA) is pleased to announce that Dr. Sunho Kang has joined the company as Head of Product and Technology.

Dr. Kang is a globally recognized battery-technology executive with more than 25 years of leadership experience spanning the United States, Asia, and Europe, and a distinguished track record of advancing innovations from laboratory research through gigafactory-scale production. He has held senior executive positions at world-leading organizations including Samsung SDI, Apple, and Volkswagen Group of America, and brings deep expertise in lithium-ion battery materials, cell engineering, and product industrialization across a broad range of applications, including electric vehicles and energy storage systems.

At TeraWatt, Dr. Kang will lead global product development and the commercialization of TeraWatt’s battery technology platform, aiming to accelerate the delivery of TeraWatt’s competitive products as well as the technology and commercialization roadmap including manufacturing scale-up.

Dr. Kang commented:

“I am thrilled to join TeraWatt Technology as Head of Product and Technology. TeraWatt’s innovative battery platform presents a tremendous opportunity to push the boundaries of lithium-ion technology, and I look forward to working with the team to accelerate product development and commercialization to deliver meaningful impact.”

TeraWatt Technology founder CEO Ken Ogata, Ph.D. commented:

“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Kang as our Head of Product and Technology. His deep expertise in battery materials, cell engineering, and productization will be instrumental in accelerating TeraWatt’s product roadmap and technology leadership. Together with Dr. Kang, we will continue to drive our mission forward.”

About TeraWatt Technology Inc.
TeraWatt Technology Inc. is a California-based company that produces lightweight, high-power, and safe next-generation lithium-ion batteries.

Company Overview
Name: TeraWatt Technology Inc.
Representative: Co-founder and CEO Ken Ogata
Headquarters: 28 Geary St, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94108, United States
Founded: January 2020
Established: December 2019
URL: https://www.terawatt-technology.com/

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SOURCE TeraWatt Technology Inc.

Technology

Tencent Cloud and Soniox Announce Strategic Partnership: Combining Advanced Speech-to-Text (STT) Technology with Global Real-Time Infrastructure

Published

16 hours ago

June 2, 2026

HONG KONG, June 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Tencent Cloud, the cloud business of global technology company Tencent, today announced a strategic partnership with Soniox, a San Francisco-based speech AI company that specializes in developing high-accuracy, low-latency speech AI solutions. The collaboration integrates Soniox’s speech-to-text (STT) technology with Tencent Cloud’s Real-Time Communication (TRTC) enterprise-grade global infrastructure, enabling enterprises to build and deploy multilingual voice AI applications across 200+ countries and regions.

Elevating Enterprise Voice AI at a Global Scale

In enterprise voice AI deployments, latency directly affects user experience and application reliability. The integration of Soniox’s high-accuracy, low-latency STT with TRTC’s global transmission infrastructure reduces latency across the entire pipeline, creating a comprehensive end-to-end solution for enterprises deploying conversational AI applications worldwide.

Soniox is the voice platform for every language. Unlike legacy speech AI, which was built primarily for English-speakers, Soniox delivers native-speaker accuracy across 60+ languages. Its technology can handle mid-sentence language switching — a user can switch between English and Chinese in a single utterance, and Soniox will capture every word with complete accuracy. All of this works through a single API that works for both speech-to-text and text-to-speech.

By integrating TRTC, the partnership leverages an enterprise-grade real-time communication backbone featuring more than 3,200 global nodes, sub-300 ms worldwide latency, and advanced capabilities such as AI noise suppression and weak-network resilience. These capabilities enable conversational AI applications to operate reliably across diverse network environments, including regions such as Southeast Asia and Africa.

With the roll out of this partnership, developers can integrate the Soniox STT API directly within the Tencent Cloud console. Whether targeting English-speaking markets or supporting languages such as Arabic, Hindi, and Malay, enterprises can build global voice applications — including intelligent customer service, voice assistants, real-time translation, and meeting transcription — to address the demands of expansion into emerging markets and multilingual scenarios.

Wison Xie, Head of Product at Tencent RTC, stated: “Tencent RTC has always been committed to providing reliable real-time communication infrastructure for global enterprises. Our partnership with Soniox brings together our strengths in enterprise-grade audio transmission and Soniox’s advanced speech recognition technology. Together, we are making it easier for businesses to deploy accurate, low-latency voice AI applications across any language and any market.”

Klemen Simonic, CEO at Soniox Inc., stated “At Soniox, our mission is to help businesses understand every word, in any language, with native speaker accuracy and exceptional speed. Partnering with Tencent Cloud combines our speech AI with world-class real-time infrastructure, enabling enterprises to build voice AI experiences that scale globally with low latency and reliability.”

About Tencent Cloud:

Tencent Cloud, one of the world’s leading cloud companies, is committed to creating innovative solutions to resolve real-world issues and enabling digital transformation for smart industries. Through our extensive global infrastructure, Tencent Cloud provides businesses across the globe with stable and secure industry-leading cloud products and services, leveraging technological advancements such as cloud computing, Big Data analytics, AI, IoT, and network security. It is our constant mission to meet the needs of industries across the board, including the fields of gaming, media and entertainment, finance, healthcare, property, retail, travel, and transportation.

About Tencent RTC:

Tencent RTC provides real-time communication solutions, including audio/video calling, live streaming, and in-game voice. With enterprise-grade security, AI-powered enhancements, and a global network of over 3,200 nodes, Tencent RTC powers mission-critical communication for customers worldwide.

About Soniox:

Soniox is a next-generation voice AI company bringing about the end of English-first speech AI. Most people on the planet did not grow up speaking English and often mix languages mid-sentence; and yet legacy speech AI was built for just English. Soniox is different: native-speaker accuracy across 60+ languages, true mid-sentence language switching, and flawless alphanumeric recognition that legacy providers still can’t match. For developers building global apps, Soniox is the only option. Try it for yourself at soniox.com.

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SOURCE Tencent Cloud