January, February & March 2021
China’s technology news
The Q1 2021 startup news summary gathers China’s technology news headlines from across January, February and March of 2021.
China’s Q1 2021 technology news headlines highlighted items including ‘digital yuan’ currency trials, livestreamed e-commerce, community buying platforms, lab-grown meats, and increasing government control of the tech sector, alongside many more.
Headlines are bullet-pointed and linked, providing both an at-a-glance overview of China’s startup news in Q1 2021 and instant access to each of the China tech articles behind the headlines.
January 2021 | February 2021 | March 2021
China’s tech news: March 2021
- Download: The Mobile Economy – China 2021, from GSMA (pdf)
- 2021 Mobile Economy Infographic, a one-pager from GSMA (pdf)
- Largest digital currency trial yet set for Chengdu, with over 40 million digital yuan allocated
- Inner Mongolia region to ban new cryptocurrency mining projects and shutter existing activity alongside pulling back on other energy-consuming industries
- ByteDance, parent of TikTok, reportedly to invest $25M in QCraft Inc autonomous minibus startup
- ICYMI: US adds to license limits on suppliers to Huawei, prohibiting export of components like semiconductors, antennas and batteries for Huawei 5G devices
- Tencent sheds $65BN in 2-day slide as investor fears rise over increasing government scrutiny of the country’s fintech sector
- I-Fitness secures $15M from Xiaomi and Shunwei Capital with online and offline sales of fitness courses for smart home-based gym and fitness systems
- Alibaba UC Browser for mobiles removed from Chinese app stores, ostensibly over medical ads by unqualified companies; more likely over tech sector scrutiny
- ICYMI: US Federal Comms Commission to strip 3 China telecom firms of US operating licenses over national security concerns
- Momenta self-driving vehicles firm backed by Toyota in $500M funding round, expanding the Japanese firm’s footprint in China
- A look at the buzz in the country’s startup and VC firms around development of a homegrown Clubhouse clone
- Government proposes establishing a joint venture with domestic tech giants to oversee data collected from hundreds of millions of consumers, led by central bank
- Hong Kong’s Avant Meats cell-based marine protein startup enters partnership with China’s QuaCell biotech firm, projecting a 90% reduction in production costs
- Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund’s Jumpstarter 2021 competition selects HK’s Rice Robotics and China’s Lingxi AR Technology as winning tech startups
- Hong Kong: Chinachem Group and HK Science and Technology Parks Corp partner to launch 2 startup support programmes, focusing on smart city tech and commercialization
- India: Procurement rules set for June likely to block the country’s mobile carriers from using equipment made by Huawei, citing national security concerns
- Japan’s Mercari marketplace app begins cross-border sales with Alibaba’s Taobao and Xianyu
- China’s Alibaba acquires HungryNaki, leading Bangladeshi online meal delivery service, gaining 500K regular customers ordering from 4K restaurants in 5 cities
- ICYMI: HK Monetary Authority and Bank of Thailand announce central banks of China and UAE to join project using blockchain for regional payments
China’s tech news: February 2021
- China: Sequoia Capital China Intelligent Healthcare Genomics Incubator, Powered by Illumina, preps for launch
- Huawei HarmonyOS: “No discernible difference between Huawei’s ‘all-new’ operating system and Android”
- China: A brief overview of smartphone shipments – an estimated 86.4M units in Q4 2020, and 326M units for the full year
- ICYMI: UK’s Ofcom, regulatory body for communication services, revokes China Global Television Network broadcast licence over ownership and control issues
- China: Nio electric-vehicle maker partnered by Hefei local government to establish new EV industrial park, building on previous Hefei gov’t funding of $1BN
- China’s TikTok to launch version of its app on Android TVs in France, Germany and the UK in move to diversity its audience
- ICYMI: SWIFT global cross-border payments firm establishes JV with China’s central bank digital currency research institute, seen as move to explore global use of digital yuan
- China: Blockchain-based Service Network, state-backed blockchain infrastructure firm, to offer financial auditing for Ethereum developers via Ernst & Young auditor partnership
- ICYMI: Lithuanian gov’t blocks contract with China’s Nuctech for baggage X-ray scanning at 3 main airports, saying data will become available to Chinese intelligence services
- China: Beijing Gov’t to give away $1.55M to residents during Chinese New Year as further step in digital currency trials, with 50K individuals receiving $30 in e-CNY lucky draw
- China: Suzhou city to add to digital currency trials with $5M airdrop, with 150K citizens set to receive digital currency by lottery, with a set time period within which to spend
- China: Clubhouse social media app blocked due to accessibility of topics including Taiwan and human rights abuses of Uyghurs in Xinjiang
- China: KPMG releases annual selection of the country’s top fintech companies, The 2020 China Fintech 50
- China: Plus, self-driving truck tech developer, completes $200M Series B funding round, aiming to grow US and China operations and expand to Europe and parts of Asia
- China: “Weibo tells me it can lend me money; the delivery app tells me it can lend me money; and now even the photo editing app tells me it can lend me money”
- China: Huawei in talks to acquire Xunlian Zhipay payments firm and clearing house, gaining licenses required to offer its own financial services in the deal
- China: A look at the recent clash between Huawei and Tencent over gaming revenue, and a look at the wider gaming market in China
- China: A brief look at the growth of livestreaming ecommerce in the country, with a focus on this year’s New Year Gala
- China: An overview of concerns around the country’s home-grown semiconductor industry, focusing on a recent high-profile fraud case
- China: WM Motor electric vehicle firm secures $1.8BN credit line from consortium of 11 domestic commercial banks
- TikTok reportedly planning major e-commerce push into the US to take on Facebook, adding live-streamed shopping, mobile TV shopping channels and more
- China: Ant Group’s MYbank and Tencent’s WeBank reportedly to join trials of the digital yuan, adding digital wallets to People’s Bank of China’s digital yuan app
- China: AkroStar semiconductor design firm, known as Xinyaohui in China, gains pre-A funding of $62M as the country ramps up chip independence moves
- MIST program shifts focus to UN SDGs with renaming to Mekong Innovations in Sustainable Tourism, serving Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam
- Cambodia: Techo Startup Center and Huawei sign MOU around developing TSC’s startup ecosystem, tech infrastructure and range of services for tech startups
- ICYMI: Huawei launches developer lab in Singapore to provide software dev resources to those building apps for Huawei Mobile Services, its alternative to Google
- ICYMI: The race to Mars heats up with 3 spacecraft from 3 nations reaching Mars orbit this month – from the US, China and the UAE
China’s tech news: January 2021
- Huawei looks to cloud services in 2021 to move away from smartphone focus as US sanctions bite
- 46,000 iOS apps removed from App Store in China in purge of apps without a government license
- A look at the country’s tech-savvy senior citizens, the ‘silver economy’, set to reach a size of 300M inside 5 years
- Tencent increases stake in Xingsheng Youxuan online grocery and community buying platform, valuing it near $5BN
- “These laws compel…businesses and citizens…academic institutions, research service providers and investors…to support and facilitate…gov’t access to collection, transmission and storage of data”
- Hospital of Chengmai County in Hainan commences issuing invoices using blockchain-based invoice management platform
- Agricultural Bank of China reportedly trialing digital yuan services, enabling a number of ATMs in Shenzhen, and establishing dedicated innovation office
- US gov’t adds 9 companies to investment blacklist, including Xiaomi smartphone giant, citing activities as a ‘Communist Chinese military company’
- 500 Limited online sports lottery service provider to issue near $14.4M worth of Class A ordinary shares in order to acquire bitcoin mining machines
- 2021 Censorship Predictions, Facial Recognition Pushback, Hong Kong Media Arrests
- Alibaba Group partners SAIC Motor, country’s largest car firm, to launch electric sedan with wireless charging
- Blockchain-based Service Network aiming for beta release of central bank digital currency in H2 2021, with intent to incorporate CBDCs from other nation-states
- China’s National Internet Information Office and Indonesia’s National Cyber and Cryptographic Bureau ink MoU on cybersecurity capacity building and technical cooperation
- Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese version, expands into e-commerce, adding Douyin Pay payments app
- Shadow banking value estimated at $12.9trillion, equivalent to 86% of gross domestic product and 29% of China’s total banking assets in 2019
- A look at the 31 gaming companies Tencent invested in last year
- Public/private sectors to spend $1.6TN through 2025 to develop next-gen infrastructure, accounting for roughly 10% of all social infrastructure spending
- “…Guangzhou K11 Art Mall…recreated a centimeter-level 3D map of the complex to locate and monitor every area, store and counter, thanks to a set of AI cameras…”
- Dingdandao raises $10.8M Series A with business management software for short-term rentals and vacation homes
- Ant Group, digital payments arm of Alibaba, to sell EyeVerify, US-based biometric security firm, due to tightening scrutiny over US user data
- Australia: China’s Huawei shifts focus from 5G market exclusion to calls on government to discuss 6G
- Purchase of Digicel mobile phone networks across Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa may be financed by Australia in response to possible China Mobile bid
- India: Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology makes permanent bans on TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps
- Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry partners Huawei for PCCI Innovation Center to align local skills to the demand of the technology job market
Asia’s startup news, today
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