Finance
China’s tech talent making big strides in AI, creating apps for world
San Francisco-based AI design app Lovart officially launched Wednesday, with North American users in focus.
Lovart
BEIJING — Chinese developers are powering some of the latest artificial intelligence tools aimed at a global market.
Melvin Chen moved to San Francisco from China to co-found AI design startup Lovart, which officially launched Wednesday — after claiming “800,000 users across 70 countries” for its test version.
“We will focus on North America as the first step,” Chen said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC. He previously led China operations for CapCut, a popular video-editing app from ByteDance that still ranks first in the photo and video category in Apple’s U.S. App Store.
Lovart uses AI to generate logos, stickers and other branding visuals based on text prompts. The new version launching Wednesday includes a “ChatCanvas” feature that claims to make specific edits easier — a client might ask a professional designer to switch two icons, a task difficult to explain only with words but simple when visuals are included, Chen said.
He expects Lovart to surpass 1 million users in the week after its launch. But he said the app isn’t coming to China soon, mostly because it’s based on Anthropic’s Claude 4 AI model and others from OpenAI — both of which aren’t officially available in China.
Beijing has to give generative AI models the green light for public use and operates a stringent firewall that blocks sites such as Google and Facebook. Companies also have their own rules about where their services can be used.
While most of Lovart’s team is based in San Francisco with the aim of better localizing the product, Chen said part of the production team is in China. He declined to share operating costs, and said the startup would seek investor funding after securing sufficient user growth.
Lovart has a free-to-use option, with monthly subscription fees of up to $90 for wider usage.
AI applications for video
In a global AI race, the U.S. government has in the last several years ramped up its restrictions on American companies selling advanced semiconductors to China. San Francisco-based OpenAI launched its ChatGPT chatbot in late 2022, and it wasn’t until January this year that China produced a clear rival with DeepSeek’s breakthrough.
But analysts have long expected China’s AI advantage would likely lie in applications rather than models, especially given that internet-based Chinese companies were able to build massive food delivery and short-video apps for the large local consumer market.
Already in AI video generation, Kuaishou’s Kling and Shengshu’s Vidu have gained global users in the last 18 months. In the realm of AI agents that can automatically perform a series of complex tasks, Manus has caught international attention.
“China-affiliated teams are increasingly influential, driven by concentrated technical talent, agile development culture, and policy support for AI commercialization,” said Charlie Dai, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester. “They excel in cost-efficient model training and rapid consumer app iteration, often prioritizing open-source accessibility.”
“Chinese models now compete globally, challenging U.S. dominance while lowering AI costs,” he said.
Another advantage is that China models such as DeepSeek and several others are open source, meaning they are free for developers to download and use.
Hugging Face, an online platform that allows people to try out open source AI models, regularly show that China models are among the top trending ones for users.
As of Wednesday, the Kimi K2 coding-focused model that was launched this month ranked first on the site, followed by Alibaba’s Qwen3 coding-focused modes that launched earlier in the day. In image-to-3D models, Tencent’s Hunyuan ranks first, while France-based Mistral’s Voxtral ranks first in audio-text-to-text.
Chen said Lovart will focus on AI for generating images and videos rather than 3D models.
“AI is the new camera … [for] capturing human imagination,” he said. He said the startup aims to build traction by holding events with the design community, including in New York, Tokyo and Europe.
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ChatGPT is by far the most popular AI app in the West, with 70 million monthly users on average in the U.S. and 144.6 million in Europe as of July, according to Sensor Tower.
Google’s Gemini was a distant second in both markets, but while Microsoft Copilot ranked third in the U.S., DeepSeek held the third spot in Europe, the data showed.
During a visit to Beijing last week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said nearly all of DeepSeek’s users had downloaded the model to run it locally in countries around the world. He also emphasized that priorities for AI development are shifting.
“I think over time it will be increasingly less important which one of the models are the smartest,” he said. “It’s going to be which one of the models are the most useful.”
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For the generation that should be in its “peak savings years,” the prospect of retiring on time has shifted from a plan to a prayer.
A newly released Employee Financial Wellness Survey by PwC found that nearly 50% of Gen X employees are pushing back their retirement dates, citing stagnant wages, rising everyday costs, and a lack of liquid savings.
Additionally, only 38% of Gen Xers believe they can retire when they originally planned, and more than half of this demographic expect to withdraw funds from their retirement accounts early to cover short-term costs.
“For employers, this isn’t a future problem. Financial anxiety during peak career years can affect focus and engagement,” PwC researchers write. “If the risks are clear, the question is why more employees aren’t taking action. It’s not a lack of desire. Most employees want stability, confidence and to feel in control. But many don’t feel equipped to get there.”
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The primary driver of this retirement delay is the inability to save as inflation eats away at monthly expenses, the report notes. Twenty-five percent of the total workforce is living without a buffer, and nearly half cannot meet basic household expenses.
Nearly half of Gen X workers are delaying retirement, PwC reports. (Getty Images)
“[Forty-nine percent] say their compensation isn’t keeping up with costs. As expenses rise faster than income, day-to-day trade-offs are becoming routine. Employees aren’t just feeling squeezed. They’re making difficult financial decisions to stay afloat,” the PwC report continues..
As a result, when Gen Xers cannot afford to leave their current jobs, the entire corporate ladder stalls, creating business risks, with companies facing higher costs as older talent remains on payroll longer than expected.
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“When employees dip into retirement funds early or delay retirement altogether, it affects more than personal finances and retirement plan leakage,” the report says. “It may also influence workforce planning, healthcare costs, succession timing and overall organizational stability.”
The findings also show that a significant portion – 41% – of the workforce feel they were never given the tools to manage a crisis of this magnitude, leading to a sense of being “overwhelmed” by financial choices.
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PwC provided a call to action for employees and their employers, encouraging them to reduce the stigma around financial education, foster trust through human coaches, emphasize skill building and focus on day-to-day finances before long-term goals.
“Employees define financial wellness simply: less stress, fewer surprises and the freedom to make financial choices with confidence. For employers, that’s the opportunity.”
Cybersecurity and enterprise software stocks have been market dogs in 2026, with fears that AI will wipe out a wide range of companies in the enterprise space dominating the narrative. But they snapped a brutal losing streak this past week, joining in the broader market rally that saw all losses from the U.S.-Iran war regained by the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500.
Cybersecurity has been “a victim of some of the AI-related headlines,” Christian Magoon, Amplify ETFs CEO, said on this week’s “ETF Edge.”
It wasn’t just niche cybersecurity names. Take Microsoft, for example, which was recently down close to 20% for the year. Its shares surged last week by 13%.
A big driver of the pummeling in software stocks was a rotation within tech by investors to AI infrastructure and semiconductors and some other names in large-cap tech, Magoon said, and since cybersecurity stocks and ETFs are heavily weighted towards software companies, they were left behind even as those businesses continue to grow on a fundamental basis.
But Wall Street now has become more bullish with the stocks at lower levels. Brent Thill, Jefferies tech analyst, said last week that the worst may be over for software stocks. “I think that this concept that software is dead, and then Anthropic and OpenAI are going to kill the entire industry, is just over-exaggerated,” he said on CNBC’s “Money Movers” on Wednesday.
“Big Short” investor Michael Burry wrote in a Substack post on Wednesday that he is becoming bullish about software stocks after the recent selloff. “Software stocks remain interesting because of accelerated extreme declines last week arising from a reflexive positive feedback loop between falling software stocks and changes in the market for their bank debt,” he wrote.
The Global X Cybersecurity ETF (BUG), is down about 12% since the beginning of the year, with top holdings including Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Akamai Technologies and CrowdStrike. But BUG was up 12% last week. The First Trust NASDAQ Cybersecurity ETF (CIBR) is down 6% for the year, but up 9% in the past week.
Piper Sandler analyst Rob Owens reiterated an “overweight” rating on Palo Alto Networks which helped the stock pop 7% — it is now down roughly 6% on the year. Its peers saw similar moves, including CrowdStrike.
Performance of Global X cybersecurity ETF versus S&P 500 over past one-year period.
Magoon said expectations may have become too high in cybersecurity, and with a crowding effect among investors, solid results were not enough to to push stocks higher. But the down-and-then-back-up 2026 for the sector is also a reminder that when stocks fall sharply in a short period of time, opportunity may knock.
“Once you’re down over 10% in some of these subsectors, you start to see the contrarians start to say, ‘well, maybe I’ll take a look at this,'” Magoon said.
He said AI does add both opportunity and uncertainty to the cybersecurity equation, increasing demand but also introducing new competition. But he added, “I think the dip is good to buy in an AI-driven world,” specifically because the risks to companies may lead to more M&A in cyber names that benefits the stocks.
For now, investors may look for opportunity on the margins rather than rush back into beaten-up tech names. “I think investors are still going to remain underweight software,” Thill said.
But Magoon advises investors to at least take the reminder to keep an eye on niches in the market during pronounced downturns. “The best-performing are often the least bought and do the best over the next 12 months versus late-in-the-game piling on,” he said.
While that may have been a mindset that worked against the last investors into cybersecurity and enterprise software in mid-2025 when the negative sentiment started building, at least for now, it’s started working for the stocks in the sector again.
Meanwhile, this year’s biggest winner is also a good example of what can be an extended trade in either a bullish or bearish direction. Last year, institutional ownership of energy was at multi-year lows, Magoon said, referencing Bank of America data. “Reverse sentiment can be a great indicator,” he said.
But he cautioned that any selective buying of stocks that have dipped does have to contend with the risk that there is a potentially bigger drawdown in the market yet to come in 2026. That is because midterm election years historically have been marked by large drawdowns. “If you think it is bad right now, it could get a lot worse,” Magoon said. But he added that there’s a silver-lining in that data, too, for the patient investor. The market has posted very strong 12-month returns after midterm election drawdowns end. So, for investors with a longer-term time horizon and no need for short-term liquidity, Magoon said, “stick in there.”
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New innovation in the exchange-traded fund industry could come at a cost to investors during extreme conditions.
According to MFS Investment Management’s Jamie Harrison, ETFs involved in increasingly complex derivatives and less transparent markets may be in uncharted territory when it comes to violent downturns.
“Those would be something that you’d want to keep an eye on as volatility ramps up,” the firm’s head of ETF capital markets told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week. “As innovation continues to increase at a rapid pace within the ETF wrapper, [it’s] definitely something that we advise our clients to be really front-footed about… Lack of transparency could absolutely be an issue if we’re going to start seeing some deep sell-offs.”
His firm has been around since 1924 and is known for inventing the open-end mutual fund. Last year, ETF.com named MFS Investment Management as the best new ETF issuer.
“It’s important to do due diligence on the portfolio,” he said. “Having a firm that has deep partnerships, deep bench of subject matter experts that plays with the A-team in terms of the Street and liquidity providers available [are] super important.”
Liquidity as the real issue?
Harrison suggested the real issue is liquidity, particularly during a steep sell-off.
“We’ve all seen the news and the headlines around potential private credit ETFs. That picture becomes much more murky,” he added. “It’s up to advisors, to investors [and] to clients to really dig in and look under the hood and engage with their issuers.”
He noted investors will have to ask some tough questions.
“What does this look like in a 20% drawdown? How does this liquidity facility work? Am I going to be able to get in? Am I going to be able to get out? And if I’m able to get out, am I able to get out at a price that’s tight to NAV [net asset value], and what’s the infrastructure at your shop in terms of managing that consideration for me,” said Harrison.
Amplify ETFs’ Christian Magoon is also concerned about these newer ETF strategies could weather a monster drawdown. He listed private credit as a red flag.
“If your ETF owns private credit, I think it’s worth taking a look at, kind of what the standards are around liquidity and how that ETF is trading, because that should be a bit of a mismatch between the trading pace of ETFs and the underlying asset,” the firm’s CEO said in the same interview.
Magoon also highlighted potential issues surrounding equity-linked notes. The notes provide fixed income security while offering potentially higher returns linked to stocks or equity indexes.
“Those could potentially be in stress due to redemptions and the underlying credit risk. That’s another kind of unique derivative,” Magoon said. “I would very closely look at any ETF that has equity-linked notes should we get into a major drawdown or there be a contagion in private credit or something related to the banking system.”
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