Xiaohongshu Ramps Up AI Investment, Appoints Conan as President

Xiaohongshu's Strategic Pivot: Going All-In on AI

On April 30, social platform Xiaohongshu issued an internal memo explicitly calling for "increased AI investment" and announcing Conan's official appointment as company president. This major personnel and strategic shift signals that Xiaohongshu is elevating AI capability building to a core strategic priority.

In recent years, China's internet giants have been doubling down on AI initiatives. From Baidu and Alibaba to ByteDance, AI has become the key battleground for future competitiveness. Xiaohongshu's explicit commitment to ramping up AI investment in its internal memo indicates that the platform — widely known for its lifestyle "seeding" community — now views AI as the core engine for its next phase of growth.

Conan had already held significant management responsibilities within Xiaohongshu, and industry observers widely believe his formal appointment as president is closely tied to the company's AI strategy rollout. Xiaohongshu sits on a massive trove of user-generated content (UGC) and rich consumer decision-making data. These unique data assets provide a natural training ground and deployment environment for AI applications — whether in content recommendation, intelligent search, AI-assisted content creation, or smart e-commerce. AI is poised to unlock entirely new product experiences and monetization pathways for the platform.

MediaTek Q1 Earnings: Gross Margin Under Pressure but Improving Sequentially

On the same day, chip giant MediaTek held its earnings call and released its Q1 2026 financial results. The company reported quarterly earnings per share (EPS) of NT$15.17, up 5.6% quarter-over-quarter but down 17.4% year-over-year. Consolidated revenue came in at NT$149.151 billion, a slight 0.7% sequential decline and a 2.7% year-over-year decrease.

Notably, MediaTek's Q1 gross margin stood at 46.3%, up 0.2 percentage points sequentially but down 1.8 percentage points year-over-year. The company attributed the sequential improvement to product mix optimization, while the year-over-year decline reflected margin structure adjustments in certain product lines. As a global leader in IC design, MediaTek has been aggressively expanding into AI chips in recent years. Its Dimensity series of mobile processors already feature deeply integrated on-device AI capabilities, and a growing share of AI-related chips in its future product portfolio could become a key driver for margin improvement.

Alibaba Cloud Domain Price Adjustments: Upstream Cost Pass-Through

Alibaba Cloud recently issued a domain product pricing notice, announcing that due to upstream domain registry cost increases, new pricing will take effect on May 12, 2026 at midnight. Specifically, renewal prices for .icu, .cyou, and .bond suffixes will be adjusted to RMB 125/year, with transfer-in prices also set at RMB 125.