China has drafted export controls on 40 technologies, more than half of them linked to artificial intelligence. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S9 tablets are getting their last major Android update, Micron shares remain well below their record, Polar Capital Technology Trust has bought back shares and the World Bank is promoting small AI models for developing countries.
China drafts export controls on 40 technologies, including advanced AI
On Friday, October 16, two Chinese government departments, the commerce ministry and the science and technology ministry, released a draft list that would ban or restrict the export of 40 technologies across artificial intelligence, solar power, chip design and biomedicine. Under the plan, 14 of the technologies would be barred from export and the remaining 26 would need official approval. Twenty-three of the items relate to AI, including methods for building large language models, AI agents that carry out tasks largely on their own, and the large computing clusters used to train them. The draft also covers 12 technologies used in solar power manufacturing and five in biomedicine, among them techniques for cell and gene therapies. The rules have not been finalised, and comments can be submitted until November 15. In the meantime, companies have had to register transfers of the affected technologies, such as sales of intellectual property rights or licences granted abroad, since the announcement.
The proposal would cover technology for AI models with at least two trillion parameters, as well as models ranked among the world’s ten best for performance, use or safety, and models trained on what Beijing calls core data, meaning information concerning national security, the economy, public livelihoods and major public interests. Foreign users would still be able to reach Chinese AI services through websites, apps, programming interfaces and online software platforms, and technology already in the public domain, including open-source tools and published research, would generally be exempt. Finished solar modules would also stay outside the controls. A ministry spokesperson said the government wanted to ensure AI remained safe and controllable, prevent misuse and keep it under human control, citing the risk of attacks on critical infrastructure. The ministry said the measures were not aimed at any particular country or company, although they come amid a technology rivalry with the United States, which restricts exports of advanced AI chips to China.
The Ministry of Commerce is a department of China’s State Council, the country’s cabinet, and is responsible for policy on foreign trade, export and import regulations, foreign direct investment, consumer protection and competition, as well as for negotiating trade agreements with other countries. It was formed in March 2003, taking over from the former Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation, and its current minister is Wang Wentao. The ministry runs the administration of foreign trade and acts as China’s main negotiator in trade talks, while one of its vice ministers serves as the international trade representative at bilateral and multilateral negotiations. It also regulates foreign investment, working with the National Development and Reform Commission on lists of sectors closed or restricted to foreign investors, and it is China’s most important negotiator on the global governance of intellectual property. Between 2008 and 2018 it was responsible for reviewing mergers under the country’s anti-monopoly law, before a new market regulator took over that role.
Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S9 tablets enter their final year of major Android updates
Owners of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S9, S9+, S9 Ultra, S9 FE and S9 FE+ tablets are due to receive their last major Android upgrade this year. The devices will get One UI 9, Samsung’s software based on Android 17, after which they will move to security patches only. The series went on sale in 2023 running One UI 5.1, based on Android 13, and Samsung promised it four generations of major operating system updates and five years of security fixes, so those patches should continue until some point in 2028. Older models have already reached the end of their major upgrades. The Galaxy Tab S8, S8+ and S8 Ultra, launched in February 2022, received their final version with One UI 8, based on Android 16, and should keep receiving security updates until February 2027. The budget Galaxy Tab A9 and A9+, released in October 2023, have also had their last major update with Android 16.
Despite being newer than the S9 range, the Tab A9 models stopped receiving major updates sooner, probably because they were aimed at the lower end of the market, though they will get one more year of security fixes. Newer tablets have longer support. Samsung introduced a seven-year update policy with the Galaxy Tab S10 series in 2024, and the Galaxy Tab S11 and S12 models carry the same commitment, with the recent Tab S12 Ultra promised seven years of operating system and security updates. Even the budget Galaxy Tab A11 and A11+, released in 2025, qualify for seven years. Rugged Galaxy Tab Active models sold to businesses follow different rules: the Tab Active5, launched in 2024 on Android 14, is expected to be updated up to Android 18 with security patches until 2029. Samsung releases updates at different times depending on the model and the region, so not every owner receives a new version on the same day.
The Galaxy Tab S9 series was unveiled at a Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event in Seoul on July 26, 2023, the first such event held in the company’s home country, alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Z Flip 5 phones and the Galaxy Watch 6. The tablets succeeded the Galaxy Tab S8 series and went on sale on August 11, 2023. Samsung added the cheaper Tab S9 FE and S9 FE+ in October that year, with lower-resolution LCD screens and a mid-range Exynos 1380 processor, the first time it had released two FE models at once. The flagship models brought Dynamic AMOLED 2X screens across the range, a dust and water resistance rating, a lower-latency S Pen stylus and an under-display fingerprint sensor. The S9 generation was the last in which Samsung offered its flagship tablet in three screen sizes. The main models were discontinued in September 2024 and the FE versions in April 2025.
Micron shares sit about a quarter below their peak after a year of AI-driven gains
Shares in Micron Technology, the American memory chip maker, are trading about 24 per cent below their all-time high, despite having risen by about 445 per cent over the past year, more than quintupling in value. The company’s growth has been driven mainly by the rapid spread of artificial intelligence and the many data centres needed to run it, all of which require large amounts of memory. In its fourth quarter, a record, Micron reported net income of $37.7 billion, an increase of 1,077 per cent on the same period a year earlier, and its net income for the full year rose by nearly 900 per cent to about $85 billion. The company has also authorised up to $35 billion of additional share buybacks, equivalent to about 3.25 per cent of its market value of around $1.08 trillion. The repurchases will reduce the number of shares, leaving each remaining share worth more.
Investors disagree on how the stock is valued. By one measure Micron looks expensive, with a recent price-to-sales ratio of 8.5, well above its five-year average of 3.9. By another it looks cheap, with a forward price-to-earnings ratio of about 5.5, half its five-year average of 11, a low figure for a company growing quickly. The same analysis points to several risks. Competition could grow from ChangXin Memory Technologies, a Chinese company that is trying to challenge Micron with cheaper chips. Demand linked to AI could also slow sharply if new concerns about the technology emerge. One example cited is a recent warning from the AI developer Anthropic that AI models may be able to copy themselves without access to a data centre, including on home devices. Any slowdown in the construction of data centres would weigh on demand for the memory chips that have powered Micron’s recent results.
Micron, based in Boise, Idaho, makes computer memory and storage products, including dynamic random-access memory, flash memory, high-bandwidth memory and solid-state drives. It is the only major American memory manufacturer and one of the three biggest in the world, alongside the South Korean companies Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. The company was set up in 1978 as a consultancy for semiconductor design by four founders, Ward and Joe Parkinson, Dennis Wilson and Doug Pitman, and moved into manufacturing in 1981, when its first wafer plant began producing 64K memory chips. It went public in 1984. For years it sold consumer products under the Crucial brand, which it discontinued in February 2026. Sanjay Mehrotra has been president and chief executive since 2017. On May 26, 2026, Micron became the latest American company to reach a market value of $1 trillion, amid surging demand for its high-bandwidth memory chips.
Polar Capital Technology Trust buys back more than 420,000 of its shares
Polar Capital Technology Trust, a London-listed investment company that holds shares in technology firms, repurchased 420,389 of its own shares on October 16, 2026. It paid an average of 634.82 pence per share, with prices ranging from 634 pence to 636 pence. The repurchase was carried out under authority approved by shareholders at the annual general meeting on October 5, when 1,102,479,134 shares were in issue. After the purchase the trust held a total of 272,833,303 of its own shares in treasury. The transaction is a capital management step rather than a change in strategy. The trust still aims to grow its capital over the long term by spreading its investments across technology companies around the world, and its next interim results are due before the end of the year.
The trust’s holdings remain concentrated by theme. As of August 28, 2026, its portfolio contained 95 positions, and semiconductor makers and suppliers of chip-making equipment represented 41.5 per cent of its net assets. The ten largest holdings together accounted for 44.5 per cent. Those figures mean that swings in technology shares, and in chip stocks in particular, can affect the trust more strongly than they would a broadly diversified equity fund. Based on the average price, the October 16 purchase cost roughly £2.67 million and covered less than 0.04 per cent of the 1.1 billion shares in issue at the annual meeting. The portfolio figures come from the trust’s official key information page, which also gives April 30 as the end of its financial year. The buyback gives shareholders a recent reference point for the trust’s capital management ahead of its next reporting period, while its investment case continues to rest on the performance of global technology companies.
Polar Capital Technology Trust is a large British investment trust and is dedicated to investing in technology companies. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange, where it trades under the ticker PCT, and it is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. Its international securities identification number is GB00BR3YV268. The trust was launched in December 1996 by Henderson Global Investors under the name Henderson Technology Trust and adopted its current name after management passed to Polar Capital in April 2001. It is managed by Polar Capital, and its chair is Catherine Cripps, who was promoted to that role in May 2022. The trust is classed as an investment trust focused on global technology shares, and the London Stock Exchange is its primary market. In December 2024 its management team said it was focusing on the long-term potential of artificial intelligence.
World Bank urges developing countries to build small AI models that run on phones
The World Bank is encouraging developing countries to create small artificial intelligence models that can run on a mobile phone with weak internet connections, so that they can share in the benefits of the technology. Paschal Donohoe, the bank’s chief knowledge officer, said AI could speed up growth in emerging economies, provided it was tailored to the needs of each place. Small AI relies on specialised models trained on narrower sets of data for a particular purpose. Donohoe said economic development that might have taken centuries in the countries the bank works with could now happen within decades. He said such tools would work locally, with little connectivity and in the language of the community, and gave the example of Indian farmers in the bank’s AgriConnect agricultural programme who needed soil analysis in their own language. There would never be enough scientists to advise every small farm, he said.
Donohoe suggested such products could come from cooperation between the World Bank, governments and private companies. How AI will affect employment and growth is one of the main subjects at this week’s yearly gathering of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Bangkok. Speaking on a panel, the IMF’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, said governments needed to provide electricity, digital infrastructure, readiness among workers and protection against bad actors for AI to succeed, adding that adoption could then be as democratic as the mobile phone. The bank’s world development report, published in August, found that nearly one in three rural schools across sub-Saharan Africa had no electricity, while over two-thirds lacked a dependable internet connection. Georgieva warned that 40 per cent of jobs worldwide were likely to be changed or eliminated by AI, with young people entering the labour market most at risk. Donohoe said the bank had mobilised $120 billion of private capital in the past year.
Paschal Donohoe, born in Dublin in 1974, is an Irish economist and former politician from the Fine Gael party who was appointed managing director and chief knowledge officer of the World Bank in November 2025. He spent more than a decade in the Irish government, serving as minister for finance from 2017 to 2022 and again from January to November 2025, and as minister for public expenditure and reform. He was also president of the Eurogroup from July 2020 until November 2025. Before that he was minister for transport, tourism and sport and a junior minister for European affairs. Donohoe represented the Dublin Central constituency in the Irish parliament from 2011 to 2025, having earlier served as a senator and as a Dublin city councillor. He studied at Trinity College Dublin. At the World Bank, which is led by its president, Ajay Banga, attracting private funding to emerging economies has become a priority.