BEIJING, Aug. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — A report from Science and Technology Daily:

When the worst earthquake in Pakistan’s history occurred, Syed Shah was only in third grade. But the memory remains indelibly etched in his mind. “The earth was roaring, the sky spinning, walls cracking, and buildings collapsing. I could hear nothing but crying. I was terrified.”

The powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck northern Pakistan on October 8, 2005. The disaster claimed approximately 73,000 lives and caused the collapse of over 600,000 homes across the country.

The earthquake also altered the life trajectory of Khan Shahzada, then a junior engineer at the Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority, working alongside Chinese contractors. “Witnessing the tragic aftermath of the earthquake firsthand prompted me to shift my career focus toward earthquake engineering,” Shahzada, now a professor at the University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, said.

Today, their life trajectories have converged at the China-Pakistan Belt and Road Joint Laboratory on Smart Disaster Prevention of Major Infrastructures. Some are pursuing their studies here, while others are conducting research.

Tackling shared needs

“The intention behind establishing the joint lab was to better address natural disasters like earthquakes that both China and Pakistan face,” said Professor Xu Zhaodong of Southeast University. Both countries are located on the Eurasian Seismic Belt, which accounts for approximately 15 percent of the world’s earthquakes.

A report released in 2023 shows that since 2001, earthquakes have become the deadliest type of natural disaster for Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) partner countries.

“A significant number of BRI partner countries are located in seismically active zones or regions prone to typhoons, while incidents such as fires also occur periodically. According to available estimates, the cumulative annual economic losses resulting from such disasters across these countries over the past two decades have exceeded one trillion RMB,” Khan Muhammad, counsellor for scientific and technological affairs, Embassy of Pakistan in China, said.

“The destruction of major infrastructure under the impact of multiple hazards, such as earthquakes and storms, is the direct cause of immense economic loss and casualties,” Xu said.

Xu pointed out that the field of disaster prevention and mitigation for major infrastructure currently faces several urgent challenges: limited understanding of cascading multi-disaster mechanisms, lack of advanced big data-driven monitoring systems, and constraints in effective emergency response.

“Faced with shared needs of disaster prevention and mitigation, it is only natural for China and Pakistan to establish a cooperation platform,” Muhammad said. He added that the joint lab was founded against this backdrop, with the goal of enhancing disaster management capabilities through sci-tech innovation and knowledge sharing.

Consolidating the foundation of cooperation

As early as 2014, the two sides conducted joint research on viscoelastic damping and resilience enhancement technology for post-earthquake structures, and completed Pakistan’s first viscoelastic civil damping project at Vision High School.

“These early collaborations laid a solid foundation for the expansion of partner institutions and ongoing academic and technical exchanges between the two sides,” Muhammad said.

“Since the establishment of the joint lab, the two sides have developed a regular exchange mechanism, leading to deeper cooperation in areas such as joint R&D, talent cultivation, standard formulation, and the promotion of applicable technologies,” Chen Zhongfan, professor of Southeast University, said.

“The joint lab provides world-class facilities and cutting-edge technologies, helping us move toward a higher level of smart disaster prevention,” Shahzada said. Through this platform, he secured an open fund project and is currently developing a construction guideline for stone masonry structures in Pakistan.

“Looking ahead, we plan to further promote the localization and implementation of Chinese technical standards, jointly formulate standards for seismic resistance, flood control, and smart monitoring, and facilitate the pilot application of Chinese technologies in major projects in Pakistan,” Xu said.

Planting friendship trees

In September 2023, during the Chinese team’s visit to Pakistan, both sides jointly planted three saplings on the campus of the International Islamic University in Islamabad.

“Today, the saplings we planted have grown, just as the fruits of our cooperation continue to multiply,” Chen said. “By the time we see these ‘friendship trees’ again, our collaboration will have reached a new height.”

The joint lab is cultivating more interdisciplinary technical talent in the field of smart disaster prevention for the two sides.

“As the host institution of the joint lab, we use smart disaster prevention as an entry point to deeply integrate civil disaster prevention and mitigation with multiple disciplines such as AI, big data, and information management,” said Guo Tong, head of the School of Civil Engineering at Southeast University. “This provides the joint lab with a cutting-edge interdisciplinary theoretical and technical environment, as well as comprehensive support for talent cultivation.”

Shah, a survivor of the earthquake 20 years ago, is studying smart disaster prevention technology at Southeast University. “After completing my master’s degree this year, I plan to pursue my PhD here,” Shah said. “In the future, I hope to apply the knowledge I have gained here in disaster prevention and mitigation efforts in my hometown.”

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SOURCE Science and Technology Daily

Trip.com Group to introduce global minimum of 20 days paid paternity leave for employees starting August 2026First online travel service provider in Asia Pacific with validated near-term and net-zero emissions targets by SBTiGroup launches USD 100 Million Tourism Innovation Fund, recognises industry innovation with annual awards at 2025 Global Partner Conference

SINGAPORE, Aug. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Trip.com Group announces new global 20-day paid paternity leave policy for employees, reinforcing its commitment to supporting families across its global workforce. The company further releases its 2025 Sustainability Report, highlighting progress in advancing climate action, empowering communities and driving innovation across the global tourism industry.

Among the report’s key milestones, Trip.com Group became the first online travel company in the Asia Pacific region to have both its near-term and net-zero greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). Together, these initiatives reflect the Group’s “Friendly Four” framework (family-friendly, community-friendly, environmentally-friendly, and stakeholder-friendly), which brings together its commitment to supporting families, communities, the environment, and industry partners while creating long-term value for travellers around the world.

“Travel connects people, cultures and communities, and we believe the future of travel must also create positive outcomes for the planet and society,” said Jane Sun, CEO of Trip.com Group. “Through our sustainability strategy, we are investing in our people, accelerating climate action and working with partners worldwide to build a more resilient tourism ecosystem.”

Supporting Families

Trip.com Group continued its commitment to a family-friendly workplace through its Childcare Subsidy, which has supported over 2,038 families since its launch. In 2025, 1,114 employees benefited from this initiative, supporting over 1,132 children, with annual expenses totalling approximately USD 1.6 million. During the reporting period, the Group also maintained a 100% return-to-work rate for female employees following maternity leave.

Building on this, Trip.com Group is introducing a global paternity leave policy that supplements local statutory entitlements and provides eligible employees with minimum of 20 days of paid paternity leave. The first phase will take effect on 1 August, covering selected markets across Asia, with additional regions joining later this year. By expanding support for working parents, the Group continues to foster a more inclusive workplace and promote a healthier balance between work and family life.

Alongside these initiatives, Trip.com Group continued advancing workplace diversity and inclusion. Women held 33.1% of senior management positions and 52.3% of management roles within key revenue-generating functions. The Group further promoted women in STEM-related positions, with women accounting for 33.0% of all related positions.

Empowering Communities

Trip.com Group expanded initiatives that make tourism more inclusive while delivering meaningful benefits to local communities.

The Group remains committed to empowering users via solutions that enhance the planning and booking experience. The ‘Trip for Everyone’ project focused on upgrading and unifying accessibility standards, covering colour contrast, scalable typography, screen reader compatibility, and keyboard navigation. The work was recognised with an iF Design Award for helping travellers with diverse physical and situational needs explore the world with more autonomy.

Trip.com Group continued expanding its Country Retreat programme, supporting approximately 11,000 indirect employment opportunities during the reporting year. The initiative has supported local economies by generating around 51,000 employment opportunities over the last five years, and has hired at least 80% of local staff across its 12 properties.

To help travellers access support in times of need, the Group’s Global SOS Platform was upgraded to support 24 languages and 20 travel emergency scenarios. By the end of 2025, the platform had handled more than 23,000 assistance requests across over 100 destinations. 

Protecting the Future of Travel

Climate action remained a key priority as Trip.com Group continued to reduce its environmental footprint while making lower-carbon travel choices more accessible.

During the reporting period, the Group’s greenhouse gas emission reduction targets were officially validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), making Trip.com Group the first online travel company in the Asia Pacific region to have both its near-term and net-zero emissions targets validated by the SBTi.

The Group also continued expanding its portfolio of more sustainable travel products across accommodation, flights, car rentals and rail. In 2025, 2.74 million users embraced lower-carbon business travel, generating 23.44 million lower-carbon travel bookings throughout the year.

Growing Tourism Together

Trip.com Group continued investing in the long-term growth of the tourism ecosystem through innovation, destination development, and stronger partnerships.

At its 2025 Global Partner Conference, the Group launched its USD 100 million Tourism Innovation Fund to support innovative tourism projects and cross-sector collaborations that encourage new destination growth models and differentiated visitor experiences. Supporting destinations also means helping local businesses connect with travellers. By the end of 2025, Trip.com Group offered more than 350,000 in-destination experiences worldwide, including dining and shopping experiences, day tours, attraction and performance tickets, and customised guided tours, creating new opportunities for tourism suppliers while enriching travellers’ journeys.

The full report provides further detail on Trip.com Group’s progress, key priorities, and its continued commitment to building a more inclusive, sustainable and resilient future for travel.

Read the full 2025 Sustainability Report here

About Trip.com Group

Trip.com Group is a global travel service provider comprising of Trip.com, Ctrip, Skyscanner, and Qunar. Across its platforms, Trip.com Group helps travellers around the world make informed and cost-effective bookings for travel products and services and enables partners to connect their offerings with users through the aggregation of travel-related content and resources, and an advanced transaction platform consisting of apps, websites and 24/7 customer service centres. Founded in 1999 and listed on NASDAQ in 2003 and HKEX in 2021, Trip.com Group is on the mission “to pursue the perfect trip for a better world”. Find out more about Trip.com Group here: group.trip.com.

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SOURCE Trip.com Group

Recognition underscores Tencent Cloud’s commitment to empowering game developers with industry-leading AI-powered solutions and deep gaming expertise

HONG KONG, Aug. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Tencent Cloud, the cloud business of global technology company Tencent, has been named a “Leader” in the “Omdia Market Radar: Cloud Platforms for Games 2026” report. The company received the highest rating of “Advanced” in four key areas: Game Servers, Multiplayer Services, AI & Machine Learning, and LiveOps, highlighting its strengths across core gaming infrastructure, live operations, and AI-driven innovation for game developers worldwide.

Published by global market research and advisory firm Omdia, the report marks the second consecutive year Tencent Cloud has been recognized as a Market Leader. Omdia noted Tencent Cloud’s unique position in the gaming industry, with a cloud platform built on infrastructure originally developed to support Tencent’s own game portfolio. The report further recognized Tencent Cloud’s deep gaming expertise, extensive operational experience, and continued investment in AI-powered technologies that support game development, live operations, and player engagement.

Embedding AI Capabilities Across the Gaming Lifecycle

Over the past year, Tencent Cloud has made AI the cornerstone of its gaming solutions. Leveraging Tencent Games’ deep well of proprietary AI technology and operational experience, the company has successfully embedded large AI models and intelligent agents directly into the game development pipeline. Today, Tencent Cloud supports the entire game lifecycle, from initial art and design to coding, testing, live-ops, and growth. By automating and enhancing tasks like creative ideation, code generation, data analysis, and asset creation, Tencent Cloud empowers development teams to maximize their efficiency and focus on what matters most: unleashing their creativity.

Reflecting the growing adoption of AI in gaming, Tencent Cloud’s gaming AI solutions have supported more than 150 game developing companies over the past three months, while AI Agent usage across the gaming industry has increased by more than three times year-over-year. Tencent Cloud’s AI-powered productivity solutions such as CodeBuddy and WorkBuddy, help streamline coding, content production, project management, data analysis, and operational workflows, improving efficiency across both technical and non-technical teams.

AI in Action: Powering Games Across the Global Stage

For a live-service strategy RPG that spans multiple regions globally — like ZLONGAME’s Dragon Traveler — virtually every decision, from user acquisition and launch timing to version updates, hinges on data. The studio deployed WorkBuddy to fundamentally rethink how that data reaches the right teams. Instead of routing every request through a dedicated data team, operations, marketing, and customer service staff now pull insights on their own through WorkBuddy, dramatically shortening the time from question to action.

At Yoozoo Games, the focus has been on transforming content and creative production. With WorkBuddy now embedded across more than 75% of the workforce, non-technical roles — planners, artists, and marketers — can take a creative brief and, through AI agents, generate storyboard scripts, layer in images, video, and voiceovers, and deliver a finished video asset. A process that once took several days has been compressed to roughly 20 minutes, making AI-powered content creation part of the organization’s daily rhythm.

Yokaverse took AI directly into the player experience. Within its strategy card mobile game, Game of Heroes: Three Kingdoms, the studio integrated Tencent Cloud’s intelligent agent platform to deliver real-time hero recommendations, in-game strategy Q&A, and character introductions — giving players immediate, contextual advice on character selection, skill usage, and team composition right when they need it.

Giant Network pushed the concept even further by turning AI into the opponent. In titles including Super Sus, the studio worked with Tencent Cloud to build AI-driven NPC gameplay, where models power non-player characters that react and take actions in real time — making AI not just a tool behind the scenes, but a participant inside the game itself.

Driving the Future of Gaming Innovation

Today, Tencent Cloud’s global infrastructure footprint spans 23 geographic regions, 66 availability zones, and more than 3,000 acceleration nodes worldwide. Supporting customers across Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, and beyond, Tencent Cloud has become the preferred cloud provider for more than 98% of China’s leading game companies — including Xishanju, Perfect World Games, and Yokaverse — with its gaming AI capabilities spanning the full chain from data analysis and R&D efficiency to creative production and in-game experiences.

Looking ahead, Tencent Cloud will continue investing in AI technologies, intelligent agents, gaming-focused cloud solutions, and global infrastructure. With growing adoption across international markets, gaming remains a key pillar of Tencent Cloud’s growth strategy worldwide. By combining deep gaming expertise with continuous AI innovations, Tencent Cloud remains committed to helping developers work smarter, empowering them to create the next generation of engaging, immersive gaming experiences for a global audience.

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.

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SOURCE Tencent Cloud