China’s technology news headlines in September of 2024 for obvious reasons spanned a wide range of technologies and developments, successes and challenges. These included, for instance: China’s asteroid sampling space mission; China’s innovations in response to ongoing ‘tech war’ limitations; regulations in China around AI-generated and AI-manipulated digital content; China’s moves to develop nuclear energy sources; and many more. Hit the headline links below to read each China technology news item in full.
Plus: Asia’s Tech News, Weekly >
Schroders: China Chartbook – Stimulus arrives, finally
- China Manned Space Agency unveils extravehicular lunar suit to be used in the country’s future crewed lunar landing missions. / full item
- China: Xpeng EV maker rolls out first of news S5 supercharger, liquid-cooled and claiming capability to deliver up to one kilometer of range charge in one second / full item
- China: Huawei and Chery Automobile add to Tesla Model Y competition with release of Luxeed R7 all-electric coupe SUV, running on HarmonyOS operating system / full item
- PayPal Complete Payments platform is set to launch in China, providing international cross-border payments to merchants. / full item
HSBC: Asset Tokenization in the Quantum Age
- China: Tianwen-2 prep is underway for 2.5 year sampling mission from a near-Earth asteroid, launching 2025 and later slingshotting to a second asteroid / full item
- Uber and China’s WeRide announce partnership to onboard WeRide’s self-driving vehicles to the Uber platform, with first roll-out set for the United Arab Emirates / full item
- China: Alibaba released over 100 open-source AI models under Qwen 2.5 release, claiming the Max edition surpasses Meta’s Llama and OpenAI’s GPT4 in specific areas / full item
- China’s Nio launches first Onvo brand EV, with sights on competition with Tesla’s Model Y / full item
China’s space plans: “As part of the plan, five main scientific themes have been identified for future breakthroughs. These are the extreme universe, space-time ripples, the panoramic view of the Sun and Earth, habitable planets, and biological and physical space science.” / full item
- China: Deep Blue Aerospace completes 10 of 11 tasks with first-of-its-kind reusable kerosene-fuelled Nebula-1 rocket, but crashes at the final stage / full item
- The US Commerce Department is expected on Monday to propose prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous vehicles on American roads… / full item
- China: YMTC, a key player in the flash memory segment, achieves chip design architecture innovation as it responds to ‘tech war’ limitations / full item
- China’s efforts to match US computing power in artificial intelligence are being hampered by bug-ridden software… / full item
China: “According to investigations by Chinese media, data center players have built too much capacity, lack the skills to carry out complex AI processes, and have overestimated demand.” / full item
- China: Proposed regulations set requirements for a range of labels to identify AI-generated content during production, display and distribution / full item
- China: Quicktron warehouse robotics firm secures $100M Series D, with China clients including JD and Cainiao and over 1000 other clients across 20 countries / full item
China & nuclear energy: “The world’s biggest emitter, China’s planning at least 150 new reactors in the next 15 years, more than the rest of the world has built in the past 35. The effort could cost as much as $440 billion; as early as the middle of this decade, the country will surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest generator of nuclear power.” / full item
- China: Landspace successfully completes 10km vertical liftoff, vertical landing test of reusable orbital rocket, targeting first orbital flight in 2025 / full item
- China: Here’s a brief overview of Huawei’s new Mate XT, a first-of-its-kind triple-screen folding smartphone / full item
- China: Geespace, backed by Geely, launched 3rd batch of satellites for ‘megaconstellation’ of near 6000 LEO sats, aiming for global broadband services / full item
“China’s artificial intelligence industry could pour more than US$1.4 trillion into developing the technology in the next six years…” / full item
- China: Shanghai’s Energy Singularity looks to raise $500M to further develop cheaper next-gen nuclear fusion tech with small-scale tokamak reactor / full item
- China is to to launch a 2-vehicle Mars sample-and-return mission in 2028, aiming for an optimal Mars launch window that opens for only a few weeks every 26 months / full item
- China: Zhipu AI generative artificial intelligence firm secures major state-backed but undisclosed funding, valuing the firm at approximately $2.8BN / full item
- The Netherlands plans to limit ASML Holding NV’s ability to repair and maintain its semiconductor equipment in China… / full item
- China: Huawei to unveil new tri-fold smartphone model on the same day as Apple launches the iPhone 16, with Huawei device reportedly hosting 10-inch screen / full item
China: “Although a difference in yield still exists, SMIC’s capabilities are approaching a level 3 years behind TSMC…with comparable performance as TSMC’s 5-nm products…” / full item
- China: Over $6BN invested to date in nationwide datacenter network, so far consisting of near 2 million server racks and using energy from China’s West to drive Eastern tech centers / full item
- YouTube and Shopee e-commerce platform to launch online shopping service in Indonesia, with sights on wider Southeast Asia, as competition with China’s TikTok grows / full item
- India: China’s Lenovo announces AI server manufacturing in India, alongside inauguration of state-of-the-art Infrastructure Solutions R&D lab / full item
China: “Shares sank more than 30%, wiping out $50 billion in PDD’s [parent firm of Temu and Pinduoduo] market value…” / full item
- India: Tata Electronics is to hire 20,000 more employees at Hosur iPhone assembly plant, doubling the workforce to tap into Apple’s aims to boost India manufacturing / full item
- Taiwan: Two military officers have been indicted on charges of selling classified documents to China contacts in exchange for Tether cryptocurrency payments / full item
- India: Taiwan’s Foxconn is mulling construction of a $1BN smartphone display modules assembly facility in Tamil Nadu, with operating model side-stepping China components / full item
“Pacific Island nations, notably Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Fiji, have become significant areas of geopolitical competition…” / full item
- ‘Will Temu find success in Southeast Asia? A preliminary pricing study from Thailand’ from Cube Asia / full item
- Vietnam: An overview of Vietnam’s 10 proposed undersea cabling projects, and concerns around possible participation of a number of China’s cable ecosystem firms / full item
- Japan and Australia launch Pacific Digital Development Initiative, focused on Pacific Island nations infrastructure, telecoms, and information security. / full item
- Asia Tech Weekly: Malaysia & ASEAN Startups, Geely’s satellites, Intel & Japan, China & nuclear energy, NZ & Techstars, Nauru & Starlink, Singapore & alt-protein, Indian space-tech & NASA… / full item
Critical technologies in the news, globally, in September 2024
