HONG KONG, Aug. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) is pleased to announce today (Monday) the launch of its Five-Year China Government Bond (CGB) Futures contract, marking a significant step forward in the development of Hong Kong’s fixed-income and currencies (FIC) ecosystem and further enriching the city’s offshore Renminbi (RMB) market.

HKEX also warmly welcomes the measures announced by Wu Qing, Chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, to deepen cooperation and connectivity between the Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong financial markets, and supporting the continued development of Hong Kong as an international financial centre.

HKEX held a launch ceremony at HKEX Connect Hall today, bringing together senior representatives from regulatory agencies, financial infrastructure institutions, market participants and industry stakeholders to celebrate the product launch.

For HKEX, the new CGB Futures contract expands its growing China-related product suite and complements existing mutual market access programmes, including Bond Connect and Swap Connect. As the only CGB futures contract available in the offshore market, this on-exchange listed instrument enhances investors’ ability to manage duration and interest-rate exposure to the Chinese Mainland bond market.

HKEX Chairman, Carlson Tong, said: “A vibrant FIC market is critical to Hong Kong’s future growth as an international financial centre. As global investors increase their participation in Asia’s bond and RMB markets, Hong Kong has an important role to play as a trusted, open and connected hub that links China and the world. The launch of Five-Year China Government Bond Futures further strengthens Hong Kong’s offshore RMB product suite, supports the continued internationalisation of the currency, and reinforces the city’s position as a comprehensive platform for capital formation, trading and risk management.”

HKEX Chief Executive Officer, Bonnie Y Chan, said: “We are delighted to see the launch of Five-Year China Government Bond Futures today, marking a key milestone as HKEX delivers on its strategic imperative to develop a more diversified, multi-asset marketplace. From Bond Connect and Swap Connect to our growing derivatives, commodities and FIC offerings, we are creating a more integrated ecosystem that enables investors to allocate capital, manage risk and access new opportunities. Looking ahead, we will be working closely with regulators, infrastructure partners and market participants to expand connectivity, broaden product choice and strengthen risk-management capabilities across asset classes.”

The CGB Futures contract’s pricing benchmark is supported by ChinaBond Pricing Center Co. Ltd., which licenses bond valuation data and provides price calculation services, enhancing transparency and credibility for offshore market participants.

The SFC Commission Levy will be exempted for the first six months of trading and a market-wide trading fee discount of 50 per cent will be applied until 30 July 2027. At launch, the contract is supported by 13 liquidity providers from banks and securities firms together with extensive market participants, reflecting strong industry engagement. More details about the Five-Year CGB Futures are available on the HKEX website.

About HKEX

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) is a publicly-traded company (HKEX Stock Code: 388) and one of the world’s leading global exchange groups, offering a range of equity, derivative, commodity, fixed income and other financial markets, products and services, including the London Metal Exchange.

As a superconnector and gateway between East and West, HKEX facilitates the two-way flow of capital, ideas and dialogue between China and the rest of the world, through its pioneering Connect schemes, increasingly diversified product ecosystem and its deep, liquid and international markets.

HKEX is a purpose-led organisation which, across its business and through the work of HKEX Foundation, seeks to connect, promote and progress its markets and the communities it supports for the prosperity of all.

www.hkexgroup.com 

SOURCE Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited

Summit to Bring Together More Than 150 CIOs, CTOs, CISOs and Digital Innovation Leaders to Explore the Future of Financial Services

SINGAPORE , Aug. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ –The 38th Edition BFSI IT Summit Singapore 2026 will take place on 13 August 2026 in Singapore, bringing together more than 150 senior technology and innovation leaders from the banking, financial services, insurance and fintech sectors. Held under the theme “Reimagining BFSI: AI, Trust & Transformation for Singapore’s Digital Future”, the summit will provide a platform for industry leaders to discuss the technologies, strategies and partnerships shaping the future of financial services. The event is organised by Exito Media Concepts.

The summit is being held in partnership with ISACA Singapore Chapter and the Singapore FinTech Association (SFA), two organisations that play an important role in advancing digital trust, cybersecurity, governance and fintech innovation. Their collaboration reflects the summit’s focus on encouraging industry dialogue, supporting innovation and strengthening Singapore’s financial services ecosystem.

Singapore’s financial sector continues to be recognised for digital innovation, supported by strong regulatory leadership and one of the world’s most mature fintech ecosystems. As artificial intelligence, cloud computing, embedded finance, digital identity and open finance reshape financial services, organisations are balancing innovation with cybersecurity, regulatory compliance and customer trust. With the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) continuing to support responsible AI adoption, digital banking and financial resilience, technology leaders are increasingly focused on building secure, scalable and resilient digital infrastructure.

The event comes at a time when financial institutions are accelerating investments in AI-powered banking, cloud-native platforms, cybersecurity, API-first ecosystems, intelligent automation and advanced digital payments. As regulatory governance, cross-border digital finance, cyber resilience and data privacy continue to evolve, collaboration between financial institutions, fintech companies, regulators and technology providers has become increasingly important.

The summit will provide an opportunity for senior executives from across the region to exchange insights, learn from digital transformation initiatives and discuss approaches to building secure, resilient and customer-focused financial services.

Event Overview

The 38th Edition BFSI IT Summit Singapore is a by-invitation-only, in-person conference designed for senior technology, digital transformation, cybersecurity, data and innovation leaders from banking, financial services, insurance, fintech, digital banking and capital markets.

Running from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, the conference will feature keynote presentations, executive panel discussions, fireside chats, technology showcases, case studies and curated networking sessions designed to encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration between industry leaders and technology partners.

The event will also host the BFSI Innovation Awards, recognising organisations and leaders driving innovation, digital transformation, operational excellence and customer-focused initiatives across the financial services sector.

Event Details

Date: 13 August 2026

Time: 9:00 am to 5:00 pm SGT

Venue: Singapore

Format: By-invitation-only, in-person

Attendance: More than 150 CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, CDOs, Heads of Technology, Digital, Cybersecurity and Innovation

Website:https://bfsiitsummit.com/singapore/

Strategic Partners

The 38th Edition BFSI IT Summit Singapore 2026 is held in collaboration with two of Singapore’s established industry organisations.

ISACA Singapore Chapter is a professional association dedicated to advancing digital trust, cybersecurity, IT governance, risk management, privacy and audit practices. Through professional development, industry collaboration and knowledge sharing, the chapter contributes to strengthening Singapore’s digital resilience.

Singapore FinTech Association (SFA) is one of the Asia-Pacific region’s fintech industry bodies, bringing together financial institutions, fintech companies, regulators, investors and technology providers to encourage innovation and collaboration across Singapore’s financial ecosystem.

Confirmed Speakers

The summit will feature speakers from across Singapore’s financial and technology sectors, including:

Stanley Tsang, Distinguished Engineer & Senior Director, Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA)Shyam Sunder Rai, Senior Vice President, Platform Engineering, DBS BankAshish Taneja, Senior Vice President, CitiBenoit D, CITO, Head of Technology, Data and AI, Eastspring InvestmentsAnshul Johri, Group CTO, Validus GroupJia Wei Cho, Executive Director, Client Lifecycle & Compliance Business Solutions, Bank of SingaporeMeraj Khan, Group Head, Digital Banking Delivery & Operations, MaybankSrividya Subramanian Vidyasagar, Global Head, Cloud and Production Engineering, WRB Tech, Standard CharteredBrijesh Pandya, Director, Artificial Intelligence, Keppel Ltd.Ewout D, Team Lead, Solution Engineering, Guardsquare

Strategic Agenda: Key Discussion Themes

Reimagining BFSI in the Age of AI and Trust

Exploring how artificial intelligence, data analytics, responsible AI governance, cloud adoption, explainability and cyber resilience are reshaping financial services while strengthening customer trust.

Banking Beyond Boundaries: The Future of Digital, Data and Open Finance

Examining API-first ecosystems, open finance, cross-border data management, ASEAN regulatory frameworks, AI-powered fraud detection and secure digital banking infrastructure.

Embedded Finance and Superapps: The Future of Customer Engagement

Understanding the evolution of embedded finance, superapps, interoperable financial ecosystems, digital identity and real-time fraud prevention.

Modernising Core Banking: From Legacy to Cloud-Native Platforms

Exploring cloud-native architectures, microservices, DevSecOps, AI-driven operations, continuous compliance and resilient core banking transformation strategies.

Cyber Resilience, Digital Identity and Quantum-Ready Payments

Preparing financial institutions for emerging cybersecurity challenges through programmable money initiatives, digital identity frameworks, quantum-safe cryptography and AI-driven cyber defence.

About Exito Media Concepts

Exito, meaning “success”, is a B2B events and media organisation with more than 16 years of experience. Delivering over 240 conferences annually across technology, digital transformation, cybersecurity, healthcare, manufacturing, financial services and other enterprise sectors, Exito creates platforms that encourage collaboration, support innovation and facilitate business engagement. The BFSI IT Summit forms part of Exito’s global event series held across multiple international markets.

For more details, visit:

https://bfsiitsummit.com/singapore/

PR Newswire is the Official Press Release Distribution Partner of the 38th Edition BFSI IT Summit Singapore 2026.

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SOURCE Exito Media Concepts

BEIJING, Aug. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Amap, Alibaba’s location-based services platform, said it has extended the inference length of its interactive world model ABot-World-0 to as long as 24 hours on a single consumer-grade GPU, up from the roughly one-minute ceiling of mainstream interactive world models.

The 24-hour result further validates the long-horizon capability enabled by LongForcing, the training method introduced with ABot-World-0. LongForcing keeps image quality, physical consistency and interaction responsiveness stable across day-long generation. ABot-World-0 has been open source since its initial release and is used for interactive video, game design and simulation training, Amap said.

The related research paper topped the daily and weekly rankings on Hugging Face’s paper leaderboard shortly after release.

Most interactive world models remain stable for only 30 seconds to one minute. Since autoregressive video generation conditions each new chunk on previous visual context, small errors can accumulate across repeated generation steps.

LongForcing takes a different approach. It folds long-horizon stability and open-ended scene generation into a single learning objective, and rather than asking the model to memorize earlier frames, it uses a teacher model with longer temporal context to extend the training target from short-clip quality to the distribution the model produces after many autoregressive steps.

During training, the model’s outputs are fed back as inputs while being kept within a stable world distribution, reducing error accumulation and drift so that scene structure and dynamics remain coherent across day-long inference.

Under the initial multimodal conditions, user actions can drive continued scene evolution without repeated prompt switching.

With the new training, ABot-World-0 sustains continuous, physically consistent generation for 24 hours on a single consumer-grade GPU.

The capability repositions long-horizon interactive video generation from a data-center workload to one that runs on consumer hardware, lowering deployment cost for independent developers, studios and research institutions, Amap said.

The updated ABot-World-0 remains open-source and is available on Hugging Face and Reactor.

References:

ABot-World Studio: https://abot-world.amap.com/#world

GitHub: https://github.com/amap-cvlab/ABot-World

ABot-World-0 24-hour inference demo: https://amap-cvlab.github.io/abot-world-0-24h

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/alibabas-amap-abot-world-0-sustains-24-hours-of-interactive-inference-on-a-single-consumer-gpu-302840965.html

SOURCE Amap