My Take | Tesla is the poster child for foreign success in China. Can it sustain the goodwill?

My Take | Tesla is the poster child for foreign success in China. Can it sustain the goodwill?

The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of China’s ruling Communist Party, does not offer praise to foreign businesses very easily. But the newspaper broke with tradition over the weekend with an editorial paying tribute to Tesla, the US electric vehicle (EV) maker owned by billionaire Elon Musk, for helping create the domestic EV boom. The editorial, … Read more

Shenzhen’s soaring R&D spending rivals Beijing, dwarfs Hong Kong amid China’s tech drive

Shenzhen’s soaring R&D spending rivals Beijing, dwarfs Hong Kong amid China’s tech drive

China’s southern tech hub Shenzhen spent a record amount on research and development (R&D) last year, rivalling Beijing’s level and vastly exceeding that of neighbouring Hong Kong to cement its position as a national research mecca. Shenzhen’s R&D expenditure jumped to 223.66 billion yuan (US$30.93 billion) in 2023, surpassing the 200-billion-yuan mark for the first … Read more

Alibaba sees Singles’ Day campaign pay off with strong sales in 4 popular categories

Alibaba sees Singles’ Day campaign pay off with strong sales in 4 popular categories

Alibaba Group Holding says this year’s Singles’ Day campaign has seen strong demand in four product categories – home appliances, consumer electronics, beauty and apparel – in a sign of consumer-spending recovery on the mainland, as the world’s largest online shopping festival drew to a close on Monday. Taobao and Tmall Group (TTG), Alibaba’s domestic … Read more

What China is doing to make ports ‘smart’ and not prone to work stoppages

What China is doing to make ports ‘smart’ and not prone to work stoppages

On the western coastline of the southern tech hub, CMG’s port unit has turned Mawan, a terminal that used to handle break bulk cargo of grains and sandstone, into a showcase that features remote-controlled quay cranes, autonomous-driving container trucks and a digitally managed flow of goods. Operating the quay cranes and rubber-tyred gantry cranes used … Read more

TSMC halts advanced chip orders from mainland China after US export curbs evasion: source

TSMC halts advanced chip orders from mainland China after US export curbs evasion: source

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, told its graphics-processor and AI-accelerator clients in mainland China that the company will no longer produce advanced chips for them, according to a person familiar with the matter. TSMC said in a notice sent earlier this week that it will stop accepting orders requiring the … Read more

Huawei gears up for launch of new flagship smartphone model Mate 70 next month: source

Huawei gears up for launch of new flagship smartphone model Mate 70 next month: source

Huawei Technologies is expected to launch its new flagship smartphone Mate 70 next month, as a resurgence in its premium handset business intensifies its rivalry with Apple and major Chinese competitors, according to local media reports and a supply chain source familiar with the matter. If confirmed, the launch will offer fresh evidence that the … Read more

Huawei revenue surges nearly 30% in first 9 months on back of rising smartphone sales

Huawei revenue surges nearly 30% in first 9 months on back of rising smartphone sales

The Shenzhen-based company reported a 29.5 per cent jump in revenue to 585.9 billion yuan (US$82.3 billion) in the first three quarters of 2024, up from 452.3 billion yuan in the same period last year, according to a filing to the Shanghai Clearing House, the sole central clearing counterparty in China’s interbank market. However, Huawei … Read more

Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei: US tech is great, but we have to build our own

Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei: US tech is great, but we have to build our own

Huawei Technologies founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei said he appreciates the “openness and inclusivity” of the US tech community, and yet the Chinese company “had no choice” but to build its own tools because of US sanctions. Ren, 80, said Huawei needs to learn from the receptive culture of the US, which has allowed the … Read more

TSMC tech in Huawei’s AI chips raises questions about ‘porous’ supply chain

TSMC tech in Huawei’s AI chips raises questions about ‘porous’ supply chain

“US long-arm sanctions on China’s semiconductor sector have proven to be porous,” said Arisa Liu, a research fellow and director at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research. The discovery has caused a scramble to find explanations for what happened. TSMC has since halted shipments to an unnamed customer after discovering one of its chips supplied … Read more

Huawei staff arrive at new mega-campus, hub of China’s tech drive

Huawei staff arrive at new mega-campus, hub of China’s tech drive

Huawei Technologies has opened a massive campus in a suburb of Shanghai, which serves as a base to promote innovations for China’s technology self-sufficiency drive, as the company demonstrates its resilience under US sanctions. The Lianqiu Lake campus, which boasts a floor area more than 10 times larger than that of Alphabet’s Googleplex headquarters in … Read more