GoKawiil
Tech News
Since China imposed rare earth export controls in October 2025, Beijing has repeatedly granted only short-lived reprieves tied to US concessions, most recently extending a truce to January 2027 while still restricting sales. In June, China added MP Materials and USA Rare Earth—the two firms central to US efforts to build a non-Chinese supply chain—to an export control list, even as a suspension was in effect.
China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has granted regulatory approval for Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen (Qwen) language models and Tongyi Wanxiang image/video tool to power Apple Intelligence on the mainland. Network access permits have also been issued for the upcoming iPhone Duo and 18 Pro, with the Duo set to launch in China next week featuring the revamped Siri.
Alibaba has introduced the Qwen Glasses N1, a smart glasses product that the company says offers longer battery life and a higher-resolution camera sensor than Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses. The announcement positions Alibaba among a growing list of Chinese manufacturers releasing smart glasses hardware that rivals Meta's specs on paper.
Bengaluru-based Scimplify has closed a $25 million all-equity strategic funding round led by Hitachi Ventures, with customers Henkel and Teknor Apex joining as new investors alongside existing backers Accel India, Bertelsmann India Investments, Omnivore and 3one4 Capital. The round reportedly values the startup at $250 million, up from $150 million after its March 2025 Series B, bringing total equity raised to $80 million.
Commentary points to visible signs of aging in Chinese leader Xi Jinping, now 73, including a fragile appearance during a recent US visit and reports that Chinese officials requested a private rest room during his meeting with President Trump. Observers note China has no clear succession mechanism in place, reviving comparisons to opaque leadership transitions under Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.
China has rapidly expanded its scientific output over the past five decades and is now positioned to lead global research and development, according to Nature's reporting. A growing number of China-trained AI graduates are choosing to remain in the country rather than move abroad, with Chinese researchers now dominating global AI-related publications and firms like DeepSeek and MoonshotAI demonstrating competitive AI capabilities.
Nature Index figures for 2021-2025 show global biomedical-engineering output growing 70%, faster than the database overall, with the field's share of all tracked papers rising from 2.4% to 2.7%. China's contribution to that output jumped from 28.9% to 50.9%, while the US and Germany held second and third place with roughly steady shares. The analysis also highlights South Korea, Switzerland, Canada and the Netherlands as countries with distinct patterns of specialization, growth or international collaboration in the field.
At a Shanghai meeting in April, Chinese President Xi Jinping called on regional governments, universities and research institutes to prioritize basic research. The directive follows China's latest five-year plan, released a month earlier, which pledges heavy investment in fundamental science and faster development of frontier technologies including AI, quantum applications and nuclear fusion by 2030. China's research output has grown from under 120 internationally published articles in 1978 to leading positions in R&D spending, patent filings and the Nature Index rankings today.
A growing number of Chinese computer science graduates are opting to remain in China for AI research rather than pursue PhDs in the United States, as the capability gap between the two countries narrows. China now produces more AI researchers than the US, and firms like DeepSeek and Moonshot AI are building models that rival top US systems at much lower cost.
IDC reports China's overall smartphone shipments fell 15.4% year-over-year in Q3 2026, with Apple's iPhone shipments down 4.3% but its market share rising to 17.8% from 15.8% a year earlier. Huawei posted the strongest results, growing shipments 17.3% year-over-year to capture 21.1% share, while Wiko's shipments collapsed 74%.
A group of American defense startups is establishing drone production operations in Taiwan, aiming to build unmanned systems without relying on Chinese components or supply chains. The move supports both U.S. military procurement needs and Taiwan's push to expand its own defense capabilities.
The Financial Times reports that Chinese tech companies purchased more than one million Nvidia gaming and workstation GPUs over the past year to cover a shortfall in AI computing capacity. Citing industry insiders, the report says domestic AI chip output has roughly doubled but still falls nearly 1.5 million units short of demand exceeding 5 million chips. Buyers are reportedly repurposing export-compliant Nvidia models like the RTX Pro 6000D, RTX Pro 5000 and RTX 5090 for simpler AI workloads such as prefilling.