in artificial intelligence is changing the retail world, we find out how a us chip giant nvidia is leading the charge. welcome to asia business report. i'm steve lai. to a big stories in the us, it seems like apple's electric ambitions have hit the major speedbump. the company has reportedly begun winding down its dedicated to measuring electric cars. our business correspondence filed this report from york. apple still in doubt with lofty ambitions. for years, it was rumoured that it wanted to build its own electric car, one without a steering wheel or any paddles. a driverless experience. but after spending billions of dollars on the decade—long project, it now appears the iphone maker, well, it's abandoning it altogether.

we reached out to apple for a comment, but we haven't heard back from them yet. the team working on the project were on the iphone were shifting its focus to ai, some of the people who worked on the car will be moved apple's artificial intelligence division. that's according to bloomberg. while those who can't find jobs elsewhere in the company, they face layoffs. apple shares rose nearly 1% on the news, as one put it, by abandoning its trim to transform the auto industry, it will increase pressure on apple to do something profound in the area of generative ai. staying with tech, people tend to associate us company nvidia with chips and artificial intelligence. but not necessarily with retail. as the ai initiatives for the retail industry, including generative ai. they can produce content like text, images or other data when prompted. our business correspondence asked her about how ai is changing the shopping experience for customers both in—store and online. ai enables you to really

have a complete view of the customer and be able to really offer them promotions and products that are personalised and tailored to their needs. and so, here is when generative ai comes in, one of my favourite applications for generative ai that a lot of customers are now, a lot of retailers are implementing, is a shopping advisor. and the way i describe it is imagine taking the absolute best sales associate that you have in your company and replicating that on your mobile and e—commerce site. so if i'm the customer, do i know that i'm being treated to a personalised ai shopping experience here or not? chat bots in the past have not been very smart. right? and what generative ai allows you to do is truly train them, not only with your products, but the characteristics of your products. so, if i come in and i say that

i'm looking for a red top for a summer party that i'm going to, it looks at my previous shopping experience, shopping habits, it knows that i like certain styles and not every single red product so, the products that it recommendeds to me, are tailored towards my preferences and my style and what i bought in the past. in other news, the liquidation petition has been filed against china's biggest private property developer country garden. the petition was filed by creditor who says the company has not repaid a loan with billion hong kong dollars. on the move comes after china's evergrande, the world by a hong king court last month. as tensions with china rise, they are eyeing overseas expansion. the manufacturer opens

its first factory in japan over the weekend with a second plan you with 2027. factories in arizona were announced four years ago but the opening of two factories there have been derailed by labour shortages. meanwhile, it's building a factory in the german city city of dresden. i spoke with hason hsu from the kennedy school who weighed in on to smc�*s overseas ventures. the situation in tsmc on project has been rather complicated. they were on the ground in december 2022 but over the course of the last year, it has met with labour shortage, union issues and then, most recently, it is not been able to confirm the subsidy that you will get

from the chipset which posted $52 billion or so with every day going by, now that the machine is now running, the factory is not operating, it's a loss for tsmc. so, tsmc ends up having to allocate some of its manpower and resources to other projects such as japan and so, we see kumamoto has accelerated the pace and japanese governments has confirmed a 4.8 billion us dollars in substance is to support tsmc�*s japanese expansion. so, compare with arizona, you can see japan is faster and more efficient that which means tsmc would likely to reallocate more resources injapan. in other news making headlines, sony's playstation has announced it will slash 900 jobs globally and close its london studio which develops virtual reality games. it's bossjim ryan described the move as an incredible difficult decision. the tech industry has suffered a wave ofjob cuts. last month, its rival microsoft

said it was laying off 2000 people from its gaming division. hong kong's financial chief, paul chan mo—po, has scheduled to give its annual budget address today. i'm joined by a corresponding in mumbai. that's a lot of money for a company with financial problems, are investors interested? it's desperately needed for vodafone idea here in india, the network needs a desperate upgrade, they need to expand their 4g network as well and launch 5g where rival the larger rivals like reliance and the middle company owned has already launched 5g in the market and vodafone being the third largest is still not come into the market with 5g and they have been losing

subscribers every month. every month, subscriber _ subscribers every month. every month, subscriber base - subscribers every month. every month, subscriber base data i month, subscriber base data shows that vodafone has been losing subscribers to its rivals, essentially for the reason that the network has not been upgraded, that has been a lot of complaints from the customers and that needs a fix. and for that, they need to have, the need to raise a kind of money because of the heavy debt on their books, raising funds in the past has been a problem, have been in the market talking to lenders and investors, wanting to raise funds for some time, another company has got the board approval to raise over $5.5 billion and they hope that this will help them expand their base, get more customers back onto their subscriber base and be more competitive in the second largest mobile network market where geo and adele have been highly competitive. even the average revenue point user which is a measure of the

telecom companies use will — vodafone has been the lowest in the something they want to ramp up the something they want to ramp up very quickly. the something they want to ramp up very quickly-— up very quickly. thank you for caettin up very quickly. thank you for getting across _ up very quickly. thank you for getting across that. _ hong kong's financial chief has scheduled to give its annual budget address today. my colleague sent this preview. hong kong is still filling the malaise of a post—pandemic recovery and the impact of china's sluggish economy. its finance chief, paul chan, has described a delicate balance of boosting revenue and cutting spending. but it's already starting in the red as public spending outstretched revenue. back in october, city officials said that the physical budget ending on the 31st of march could exceed almost $13 billion. the second consecutive year with a deficit. a couple of areas that could be prominent in the budget —

one big sector is real estate. property prices in hong kong rank among one of the most expensive in the world with the hong kong dollar paved to the us dollar, interest rates are at a high level. housing prices have lost nearly 20% of their value over the last three years. and that's keeping new potential buyers at bay. a further relaxation of property stamp duties could bring in new sales. but that would also lower the revenue for the city. meanwhile, property developers want the government to scrap its property cooling measures, saying that has failed to provide the housing market. next, the stock market which is losing its appeal in the region. some analysts say china's deteriorating economic performance is to blame. lastjanuary, india overtook hong kong as the world's fourth largest stock market as investors bet on the south asia's red—hot economy. the business community will be looking for the financial chief to address ways to restore confidence in the financial hub.

at the end of the day, for short—term and long—term prospects to improve, hong kong needs to get its physcal house in order. now that budget speech is scheduled for ”am local time, that 0300 gmt and one more thing and we're also due to get hong kong gross figures for the fourth quarter and all of last year at the end of the day. bitcoin headed to get high. that's it for the asia business report, i'll be back in an hour. voice-over: bbc news, - bringing you different stories from across the uk. every step is going on the right direction. i spent 16 years in manchester.

this was not available even when i lived here. i never turned to the mountains for something to do. this area, eryri, has so much to offer. it's more than just a landscape. to some people, it is a lifeline. it's massive to get people outdoors, to socialise with other people that have gone through the same difficulties. over 20 years, rob havelock battled his addictions that destroyed his life. drugs and alcohol led to isolation. i was a very lonely person, i was broken. i ruined my relationships and they'd gone downhill. after many sober walks, he has created sober snowdonia, a walking group of people who've been through similar challenges. i thought i should make this available, it is available to anyone who chooses to do it, but organise walks up the mountain and invite other people suffering with addiction

or in recovery, or even family members who have people struggling. voice-over: for more - stories from across the uk, head to the bbc news website. hey, i'm stephen with the catch up. we're starting with the reality of young people and their drug debts — and a warning, you might find some of the details distressing. a bbc investigation has been told that some teenagers in northern ireland are being forced into sex acts to reduce the amount they owe. others are told to get involved in rioting, which can cut their debts by up to £80. we've been hearing from one person who started taking drugs at 11. we can't show his face for his own safety. i was afraid to even leave the house. did you tell your family, did you tell anyone? no. sure couldn't. so, how did you clear your debt? i stole money.

you can watch the full documentary called drugs: in debt and danger on the bbc iplayer. and if you've been affected by any of this, you can get help and support on bbc action line. some other stories now, and taylor swift's dad has been accused of assaulting a photographer. a video's going around of scott swift walking with taylor, who's covered by an umbrella, after her gig in sydney. a photographer says he was hit in the face. taylor's team says two people were behaving aggressively towards them. and songs by harry styles and adele could start disappearing from tiktok. it's part of a huge row with universal music group, which lots of big artists are signed to. the label isn't happy with how much the app is paying for its music. and we're going to leave you with ten seconds of a chocolate wonderland... ..or not. this is the willy wonka experience in glasgow — it was supposed to capture some of the magic of the movie. but people were so disappointed, they called the police and demanded refunds. it looks like a bit of a disaster, doesn't it? you're all caught up —

have a great night! hello and welcome to sportsday with me, will perry. coming up on the programme: six of the best for manchester

city, five for erling haaland, as they thrash luton to reach the fa cup quarterfinals. after an unpredictable and eventful few weeks, formula 1 revs up for a new season — we look ahead to what's in store. and we hear from the 100—year—old golfer who had a special message from rory mcilroy. good to have you with us. it was the erling haaland show at kenilworth road, as the fa cup holders manchester city cruised into the quarterfinals with a 6—2 win over luton. haaland scored five times for the visitors, hat—trick number eight for the norwegian in a city shirt. kevin de bruyne set up four of them for him. mateo kovacic scored city's sixth of the night. it's now 79 goals in 83 games for haaland as a city player.