Wuzhen Summit: China creates AI advisory body, with Alibaba Cloud founder as chief expert

Wuzhen Summit: China creates AI advisory body, with Alibaba Cloud founder as chief expert

China has created a new specialist committee on artificial intelligence (AI), as part of the country’s vision for the development and governance of the technology, amid simmering tensions between Beijing and Washington. The AI Experts Committee will help spearhead efforts to promote the country’s perspective on how the fast-growing technology should be governed, according to … Read more

China to end Australian lobster ban by end of year, ‘huge relief’ for industry

China to end Australian lobster ban by end of year, ‘huge relief’ for industry

Australian businesses welcomed the removal of China’s trade impediments on its live lobsters, which are set to be dropped after more than three years following a meeting between Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday. The unofficial import ban will be lifted by the end of the year, and a timeline … Read more

ByteDance said to be turning to Huawei chips to train AI model amid US curbs, sources say

ByteDance said to be turning to Huawei chips to train AI model amid US curbs, sources say

TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance plans to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) model trained primarily with chips from compatriot Huawei Technologies, said three people familiar with the matter, as US curbs turn the social media giant homeward in search of chips. ByteDance has diversified to domestic suppliers of chips used in artificial intelligence and accelerated development … Read more

Opinion | What China watchers should know about where the country is headed

Opinion | What China watchers should know about where the country is headed

On July 18 this year, the third plenum concluded with a proposal for “further comprehensive deepening [of] reform”, a continuation of China’s pragmatic approach to development that Western analysts often underestimate. Long-term reform is a challenge. In Western democracies, political candidates campaign on promises of change, but after one or two terms, little may actually … Read more

China’s third plenum holds out hope for debt-hit local governments with funding reform

China’s third plenum holds out hope for debt-hit local governments with funding reform

The leadership agreed to grant local governments more “autonomous fiscal capacity”, allowing them to increase their tax sources and “appropriately” expand their management authority relating to taxation, the document revealed. The policy measures from the four-day, closed-door plenary session – aimed at laying out China’s economic road map for the medium term – come as … Read more