Since 2021, China has reportedly poured $100bn into support for AI datacentres. Since 2021, China has reportedly poured $100bn into support for AI datacentres. Beijing's AI policy is focused on real-life applications but Chinese companies are beginning to articulate their own grand visions S tanding on stage in the eastern China tech hub of Hangzhou, Alibaba's normally media-shy CEO made an attention-grabbing announcement. "The world today is witnessing the dawn of an AI-driven intelligent revolution," Eddie Wu told a developer conference in September. " Artificial general intelligence (AGI) will not only amplify human intelligence but also unlock human potential, paving the way for the arrival of artificial superintelligence (ASI)."

He Went to Prison for Gene-Editing Babies. Now He's Planning to Do It Again Chinese scientist He Jiankui wants to end Alzheimer's and thinks Silicon Valley is conducting a "Nazi eugenic experiment." In 2018, a nervous-looking He Jiankui took the stage at a scientific conference in Hong Kong. A hush settled over the packed auditorium as the soft-spoken Chinese scientist adjusted his microphone and confirmed the circulating media reports: He had created the world's first gene-edited babies . Three little girls were born with modifications to their genomes that were intended to protect them against HIV. The changes he'd made to their DNA were permanent and heritable, meaning they could be passed down to future generations.

What could possibly go wrong? The 4-foot-tall humanoid robot that's in front of me seems, quite honestly, a bit drunk. After 30 seconds or so it abruptly stops, then strides toward me with an arm outstretched. The little robot is at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, on the banks of the Huangpu river in Shanghai. The convention center is teeming with humanoids --dancing ones, box-toting ones, robot dog-walking ones doing circuits around trade show booths. A few lie slumped in a corner as their batteries recharge. A Unitree humanoid robot modified for experimental purposes at the BAAI.

China's Renewable Energy Revolution Is a Huge Mess That Might Save the World A global onslaught of cheap Chinese green power is upending everything in its path. No one is ready for its repercussions. There's a particular kind of sci-fi nerd who equates fusion tech with utopia. If we could only harness the engine of the stars, it would uncork near limitless energy and neatly sweep away a whole mess of humanity's problems. But how would that work exactly? What would the transition look like?

China figured out how to sell EVs. Now it has to bury their batteries. As early electric cars age out, hundreds of thousands of used batteries are flooding the market, fueling a gray recycling economy even as Beijing and big manufacturers scramble to build a more orderly system. In August 2025, Wang Lei decided it was finally time to say goodbye to his electric vehicle. Wang, who is 39, had bought the car in 2016, when EVs still felt experimental in Beijing. It was a compact Chinese brand.

The makers of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Claude claim to have caught hackers sponsored by the Chinese government using the tool to perform automated cyber attacks against around 30 global organisations. Anthropic said hackers tricked the chatbot into carrying out automated tasks under the guise of carrying out cyber security research. The company claimed in a blog post this was the first reported AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign. But sceptics are questioning the accuracy of that claim - and the motive behind it. Anthropic said it discovered the hacking attempts in mid-September.

Donald Trump Is Saying There's a TikTok Deal. Donald Trump claimed victory on a deal that would put TikTok in the hands of his allies after a call with Xi Jinping. A man walks by a TikTok sign in a shopping mall in Hangzhou in east China's Zhejiang province. The United States and China may have agreed on a deal to prevent the social platform TikTok from being banned in the US --if you take US President Donald Trump's word for it. After a long-awaited call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday, Trump announced victory on Truth Social: "The call was a very good one, we will be speaking again by phone, appreciate the TikTok approval, and both look forward to meeting at APEC!" Specifics around the shape and scope of the deal remain largely unclear as of Friday afternoon.

In a policy document released this month, China has signaled its ambition to become a world leader in brain-computer interfaces, the same technology that Elon Musk's Neuralink and other US startups are developing. Brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs, read and decode neural activity to translate it into commands. Because they provide a direct link between the brain and an external device, such as a computer or robotic arm, BCIs have tremendous potential as assistive devices for people with severe physical disabilities. In the US, Neuralink, Synchron, Paradromics, and others have sprung up in recent years to commercialize BCIs. Now, China boasts several homegrown BCI companies, and its government is making the development of the technology a priority.

This week, government agencies in countries including South Korea and Australia have blocked access to Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepSeek's new AI chatbot programme, mostly for government employees. Other countries, including the United States, have said they may also seek to block DeepSeek from government employees' mobile devices, according to media reports. All cite "security concerns" about the Chinese technology and a lack of clarity about how users' personal information is handled by the operator. Last month, DeepSeek made headlines after it caused share prices in US tech companies to plummet, after it claimed that its model would cost only a fraction of the money its competitors had spent on their own AI programmes to build. The news caused social media users to joke: "I can't believe ChatGPT lost its job to AI." Here's what we know about DeepSeek and why countries are banning it.

DeepSeek, the blockbuster AI chatbot from Communist China, caused a panic when it launched Monday, triggering the US stock market to hemorrhage 1 trillion. I spent the day asking the chatbot questions, hoping to get an idea of the hype, and while some of its answers were correct, such as 95 percent of global internet traffic flows through undersea cable, others echoed remarks of the communist nation. 'China has developed advanced submarines and underwater drones capable of tapping into these cables to intercept communications,' Deepsake told me. I also watched in real-time as it removed answers or flat-out refused to talk about Tiananmen Square, internment camps and protests in Hong Kong. The chatbot divulged details about how China employs hacking groups to steal American's data and gain access to our sensitive systems.