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October 29
- Meet the Young Talent Scaling Alibaba’s AI Future at Tongyi Lab, Developer of Qwen Models
➀ Alibaba Cloud's Qwen family of large artificial intelligence models is the world's largest open-source AI ecosystem.
➁ Tongyi Lab, at the core of Alibaba's Artificial Superintelligence roadmap, is composed of some of China's brightest young talent.➂ Lin Junyang, leader of Qwen's open-source initiatives, has a humanities background and advocates for open-source communities.
➃ Liu Dayiheng, a lead engineer, introduced Qwen 3, a major AI model released in May.
➄ Hui Binyuan, a child prodigy, joined Alibaba in 2021 and conducted research on AI models understanding tables and charts.
➅ Bai Shuai, a lead engineer, achieved industry-leading scores on key benchmarks with Qwen3-VL.
➆ Xu Jin, the tech lead of Qwen's audio and multimodal capabilities, has interned at Apple, Microsoft Research Asia, and Baidu.
➇ Wu Chenfei, leading the Qwen-Image multimodal models, was a senior researcher at Microsoft Research Asia before joining Alibaba.
May 6
- DeepSeek Tech's Innovation Overhyped, Says Anthropic Co-founder
➀ Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark dismisses DeepSeek's recent hype as 'perhaps a bit overblown';
➁ Clark acknowledges DeepSeek's 'clever algorithmic ideas' but suggests it is 'six to eight months behind US frontier companies';
➂ DeepSeek's cost-efficient model training has boosted confidence in China's AI industry;
➃ Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei calls for tighter chip exports to China in response to DeepSeek's success.
October 15
- China think tank suggests Nvidia chips for data centres to avoid transfer costs
➀ A government-backed think tank in China recommends data centers to use Nvidia's A100 and H100 high-performance computing units.
➁ The recommendation comes with a warning of high costs involved in shifting to domestic solutions.
➂ Despite US sanctions and restrictions on Nvidia's advanced GPUs, China's domestic GPU start-ups have made progress in both hardware and software.
October 6
- China Claims Breakthrough in Silicon Photonics Could Clear Chip-Design Hurdle➀ China's JFS Laboratory has achieved a milestone in the development of silicon photonics, potentially helping the country overcome current technical barriers in chip design. ➁ The lab successfully integrated a laser light source with a silicon-based chip, a first in China. ➃ This breakthrough fills a gap in China's optoelectronics technology and addresses the limitations of current technology in signal transmission.
October 4
- China's Longteng Technology Buys US Flash Memory Maker SanDisk's Shanghai Plant➀ Longteng Technology has acquired an 80% stake in SanDisk's Shanghai facility. The acquisition is a move in the global semiconductor industry's value chain shift. ➁ The deal, valued at $624 million, was approved by China's antitrust authority in August. ➂ SanDisk, owned by Western Digital, produces advanced flash memory products at the Shanghai plant.
- Numemory Unveils Breakthrough 64GB NM101 Memory Chip Amidst US Sanctions➀ Numemory, a Chinese startup, has developed the NM101 memory chip, a 64-gigabyte SCM chip designed to challenge international giants and reduce China's reliance on foreign memory technology. ➁ The NM101 chip, using advanced technology and 3D stacking, offers high capacity, density, bandwidth, and low latency for data centers and cloud services. ➂ The NM101 chip is based on the principle of resistance change in new materials, which represents a significant breakthrough in memory architecture.
September 29
- Huawei is Sending Samples of Its New AI Chip Meant to Rival Nvidia➀ Huawei has started testing its new AI chip, Ascend 910C, with potential clients in China; ➁ The chip is an upgraded version of the 910B and is being offered to large Chinese internet firms; ➂ Huawei's chips are seen as alternatives to Nvidia's GPUs in multiple industries, with the Ascend solutions used in training over half of China's top large language models.
September 2
- Xiangdixian's Collapse: A Blow to China's Tech Self-Sufficiency Ambitions➀ Xiangdixian Computing Technology, a Chinese semiconductor start-up, has collapsed due to a cash crunch and legal issues, dismissing all employees. ➁ The company held an all-staff meeting to announce its dissolution and termination of nearly 400 employees' contracts. ➂ Xiangdixian failed to meet terms in a previous funding round, leading to a lawsuit and the freezing of its bank account. ➃ The firm denies reports of dissolution and is seeking new investors and external financing opportunities.
September 1
- Tech War: Beijing Sets Up US$1.2 Billion Semiconductor Fund as China Splurges on Chips➀ The Beijing municipal government has established a new semiconductor investment fund with a registered capital of 8.5 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion), managed by Zhongguancun Development Group. ➁ This move is part of China's broader strategy to support its chip industry amidst heightened trade tensions with the US. ➂ The new fund joins other initiatives from local governments, including the 'Big Fund' and the Shanghai Semiconductor Industry Investment Fund, indicating a national push towards semiconductor self-sufficiency.
August 21
- Huawei Chip Unit Event Stokes Speculation Over Tech Breakthrough➀ Huawei's HiSilicon unit is set to hold a conference in September, sparking rumors of a potential sanctions-busting tech breakthrough. ➁ The event has led to a surge in stock prices of some Chinese tech companies, with Shenzhen Huaqiang and Huizhong Instrumentation seeing significant gains. ➂ HiSilicon's market share in the global application processor market dropped to zero in 2022 but has since re-emerged with the launch of Huawei's 5G-capable Mate 60 series.