I. New Russian bill forces banks and merchants to accept digital rubles
Ⅱ.OpenAI CEO unveils new company goals for 2025
III.X towards ‘Super Apps’, payment platform X Money to go live in 2025
IV. South Korea sets up task force to help SMEs spread artificial intelligence
Recently, a bill was submitted to the State Duma that aims to compel banks and merchants to use the Central Bank of Russia Federation Digital Currency (CBDC), known as the digital ruble, and to implement a universal QR code payment system in parallel. The bill also designates the National Payment Card System (NSPK) as the operator of the universal payment code implementation, further strengthening its central position in Russia's domestic financial infrastructure.
(Source: weiyang, January 2, 2025)
Recently, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced the company's new goals for 2025. AGI is ranked first among the goals, with the rest being agents, making 4o upgrades better, stronger memory capabilities, longer contexts, ‘growth mode’, features that enable deeper research, better Sora, and more personalised settings.
(Source: ifeng, January 1, 2025)
In a New Year's message on 1 January, X CEO Linda Yaccarinoannounced that the X Money payment system will go live in 2025. The launch of the system will further improve the functionality of the X platform and could have a profound impact on the social media and payments space. In addition to X Money, Yaccarino also mentioned other upcoming projects, including X TV and Grok, the platform's artificial intelligence assistant.
(Source: ithome, January 1, 2025)
According to Yonhap News Agency on 2 January, Korea's Ministry of SMEs and Startups said on 2 January that it will set up the ‘small and medium manufacturing Artificial Intelligence innovation TF (Task Force)’ to help SMEs to effectively use and popularise Artificial Intelligence to promote digital transformation and artificial intelligence transformation.
(Source: mofcom, January 3, 2025)
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Editor：Ms. Li Shuang, Development Dep. I of AFCA
E-mail：lishuang@afca-asia.org
Tel: +86-10-58018299
