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?

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.

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.

Experts have urged caution over rapidly embracing the Chinese artificial intelligence platform DeepSeek, citing concerns about it spreading misinformation and how the Chinese state might exploit users' data. The new low-cost AI wiped 1tn off the leading US tech stock index this week and it rapidly became the most downloaded free app in the UK and the US. Donald Trump called it a "wake-up call" for tech firms. Its emergence has shocked the tech world by apparently showing it can achieve a similar performance to widely used platforms such as ChatGPT at a fraction of the cost. Michael Wooldridge, a professor of the foundations of AI at Oxford University, said it was not unreasonable to assume data inputted into the chatbot could be shared with the Chinese state. He said: "I think it's fine to download it and ask it about the performance of Liverpool football club or chat about the history of the Roman empire, but would I recommend putting anything sensitive or personal or private on them?

Iain Duncan Smith has said he was impersonated by a pro-China "wolf warrior" and has called for the country to be labelled a threat to UK security. The former Tory leader said on Monday that the "wolf warrior", a term used for combative proponents of the Chinese government, had impersonated him and sent emails to politicians around the world suggesting he had changed his views about Beijing. He was speaking at a press conference with two other MPs who were briefed by security services on Monday about cyber-attacks against them by actors linked to China. Tim Loughton, another Tory MP who has been critical of the Chinese government, said he was "particularly concerned" about Uyghur rights activists whose families were contacted by pro-Beijing figures after they associated with critical MPs. Later on Monday, ministers are expected to announce that Beijing-linked hackers were behind a cyber-attack on the Electoral Commission which exposed the personal data of 40 million voters, as well as 43 individuals including MPs and peers.