Chinese drone experts have flown to Russia to conduct technical development work on military drones at a state-owned weapons manufacturer that is under Western sanctions, according to two European security officials and documents. The Chinese experts have visited arms maker IEMZ Kupol on more than half a dozen occasions since the second quarter of last year. During that time, Kupol also received shipments of Chinese-made attack and surveillance drones via a Russian intermediary, according to the documents and two officials. In September last year, it was documented that Kupol had developed a new drone, the Garpiya-3, in China with the help of local specialists, with specific details of the extensive involvement of Chinese experts in tests and technological work on military-use drones inside Russia now being reported for the first time. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.

A team of 12 Chinese artificial intelligence company founders and researchers published a paper in Nature Machine Intelligence in June to showcase and discuss the development of the AI industry in China and the country's plans for this sector, marking the first time that Chinese experts have published an AI-themed article in a top global academic journal. Published monthly since January 2019, Nature Machine Intelligence is a subject-specific arm of the highly-celebrated scientific journal Nature. It covers research on AI, machine learning and robotics. Titled Towards a New Generation of Artificial Intelligence in China, the paper was written by 12 industry experts from prestigious universities such as Shanghai Jiao Tong University and leading companies such as Beijing-based technology giant ByteDance and Shanghai-based AI company Craiditx. According to the writers, China will become the top AI innovation center in the world by 2030.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) could help promote the development of material science and accelerate the invention of new materials, according to Chinese experts. Many key and core technologies that need breakthroughs in China are related to the material science, and AI could help in these areas, Zhao Zhongxian, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who won China's top science award, said at a science forum opened in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, Monday. Traditional methods for material composition analysis are time-consuming and expensive. It takes an average of 10 years for a laboratory to develop new materials and 20 years for mass production. With AI technology, the development and application cycle of new materials is expected to be shortened by more than half.