China's Northwestern Polytechnical University successfully tested a hypersonic aircraft called Feitian-2, claiming it reached Mach 12 and achieved a world-first by autonomously switching between rocket and ramjet propulsion mid-flight. The Register reports: The University named the craft "Feitian-2" and according to Chinese media the test flight saw it reach Mach 12 (14,800 km/h or 9,200 mph) -- handily faster than the Mach 5 speeds considered to represent hypersonic flight. Chinese media have not detailed the size of Feitian-2, or its capabilities other than to repeat the University's claim that it combined a rocket and a ramjet into a single unit. [...] The University and Chinese media claim the Feitian-2 flew autonomously while changing from rocket to ramjet while handling the hellish stresses that come with high speed flight. This test matters because, as the US Congressional Budget Office found in 2023, hypothetical hypersonic missiles "have the potential to create uncertainty about what their ultimate target is. Their low flight profile puts them below the horizon for long-range radar and makes them difficult to track, and their ability to maneuver while gliding makes their path unpredictable." "Hypersonic weapons can also maneuver unpredictably at high speeds to counter short-range defenses near a target, making it harder to track and intercept them," the Office found. Washington is so worried about Beijing developing hypersonic weapons that the Trump administration cited the possibility as one reason for banning another 27 Chinese organizations from doing business with US suppliers of AI and advanced computing tech. The flight of Feitian-2 was therefore a further demonstration of China's ability to develop advanced technologies despite US bans.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China's transition to digital payments has reached the point where physical cash has nearly vanished from daily commerce, with WeChat and Alipay now handling transactions from supermarkets to public transportation across the world's second-largest economy. Many businesses no longer maintain traditional cash registers and instead scan QR codes presented by customers, while numerous taxis refuse cash payments entirely. The widespread adoption has given tech giants Tencent and Alibaba immense power over routine financial transactions, prompting China's central bank to develop a competing digital yuan currency.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Germany's data protection commissioner has urged Apple and Google to remove Chinese AI startup DeepSeek from their app stores due to concerns about data protection. Reuters reports: Commissioner Meike Kamp said in a statement on Friday that she had made the request because DeepSeek illegally transfers users' personal data to China. The two U.S. tech giants must now review the request promptly and decide whether to block the app in Germany, she added, though her office has not set a precise timeframe. According to its own privacy policy, DeepSeek stores numerous pieces of personal data, such as requests to its AI program or uploaded files, on computers in China. "DeepSeek has not been able to provide my agency with convincing evidence that German users' data is protected in China to a level equivalent to that in the European Union," [Commissioner Meike Kamp] said. "Chinese authorities have far-reaching access rights to personal data within the sphere of influence of Chinese companies," she added. The commissioner said she took the decision after asking DeepSeek in May to meet the requirements for non-EU data transfers or else voluntarily withdraw its app. DeepSeek did not comply with this request, she added.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

36% of all Chinese undergraduate entrants -- about 1.6 million people -- selected engineering degrees in 2022 (the latest year for which data are available), up from 32% in 2010, according to data from China's Ministry of Education. In Britain and America, which have far fewer students to start with, the proportion hovers around 5%. The surge comes as China's government directs universities to focus on strategic industries and technological bottlenecks. Over 600 Chinese universities now offer undergraduate programs in artificial intelligence, a field the Communist Party vows to dominate by 2030. In 2023, officials started telling universities to overhaul their degree programs, and the education ministry announced an "emergency mechanism" to create degrees more quickly to meet "national priorities." Over half of China's young people now complete some form of higher education through 3,000-odd institutions. Youth unemployment reached 14.9% in May, driving students toward technical fields they believe offer better job prospects.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China's advantages in developing AI are about to unleash a wave of innovation that will generate more than 100 DeepSeek-like breakthroughs in the coming 18 months, according to a former top official. From a report: The new software products "will fundamentally change the nature and the tech nature of the whole Chinese economy," Zhu Min, who was previously a deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, said during the World Economic Forum in Tianjin on Tuesday. Zhu, who also served as the deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund, sees a transformation made possible by harnessing China's pool of engineers, massive consumer base and supportive government policies. The bullish take on China's AI future promises no letup in the competition for dominance in cutting-edge technologies with the US, just as the world's two biggest economies are also locked in a trade war.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from OilPrice.com: China installed its highest solar power capacity for a single month in May, according to official data, which showed mind-boggling figures that the country installed more solar capacity in a month than any other nation did for the entire 2024. With 93 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity installed in May, China smashed its own record of 71 GW in December 2024, per data from the National Energy Administration cited by Bloomberg. China's solar capacity additions in May were rushed ahead of a new government policy -- effective June 1 -- to remove pricing protection for solar power projects. Under these protections, solar projects had all but guaranteed profits when they start operations. Another new rule, effective May 1, made connecting rooftop panels to the grid more difficult. These new policies are expected to moderate the growth in solar power additions this summer, analysts say. A separate report notes that China's cumulative installed solar capacity has surpassed 1 TW, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA). "By the end of May 2025, solar capacity had reached 1.08 TW (1,080 GW), up 56.9% year on year," reports pv magazine. "NEA data show total power generation capacity stood at 3.61 TW at the end of May, an 18.8% increase from a year earlier."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: [...] the rise in China of open technology, which relies on transparency and decentralisation, is awkward for an authoritarian state. If the party's patience with open-source fades, and it decides to exert control, that could hinder both the course of innovation at home, and developers' ability to export their technology abroad. China's open-source movement first gained traction in the mid-2010s. Richard Lin, co-founder of Kaiyuanshe, a local open-source advocacy group, recalls that most of the early adopters were developers who simply wanted free software. That changed when they realised that contributing to open-source projects could improve their job prospects. Big firms soon followed, with companies like Huawei backing open-source work to attract talent and cut costs by sharing technology. Momentum gathered in 2019 when Huawei was, in effect, barred by America from using Android. That gave new urgency to efforts to cut reliance on Western technology. Open-source offered a faster way for Chinese tech firms to take existing code and build their own programs with help from the country's vast community of developers. In 2020 Huawei launched OpenHarmony, a family of open-source operating systems for smartphones and other devices. It also joined others, including Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent, to establish the OpenAtom Foundation, a body dedicated to open-source development. China quickly became not just a big contributor to open-source programs, but also an early adopter of software. JD.com, an e-commerce firm, was among the first to deploy Kubernetes. AI has lately given China's open-source movement a further boost. Chinese companies, and the government, see open models as the quickest way to narrow the gap with America. DeepSeek's models have generated the most interest, but Qwen, developed by Alibaba, is also highly rated, and Baidu has said it will soon open up the model behind its Ernie chatbot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: Since 2022, the U.S. has tightened the noose around the sale of high-end AI chips and other technology to China overnational-security concerns. Yet Chinese companies have made advances using workarounds. In some cases, Chinese AI developers have been able to substitute domestic chips for the American ones. Another workaround is to smuggle AI hardware into China through third countries. But people in the industry say that has become more difficult in recent months, in part because of U.S. pressure. That is pushing Chinese companies to try a further option: bringing their data outside China so they can use American AI chips in places such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East (source paywalled; alternative source). The maneuvers are testing the limits of U.S. restrictions. "This was something we were consistently concerned about," said Thea Kendler, who was in charge of export controls at the Commerce Department in the Biden administration, referring to Chinese companies remotely accessing advanced American AI chips. Layers of intermediaries typically separate the Chinese users of American AI chips from the U.S. companies -- led by Nvidia -- that make them. That leaves it opaque whether anyone is violating U.S. rules or guidance. [...] At the Chinese AI developer, the Malaysia game plans take months of preparation, say people involved in them. Engineers decided it would be fastest to fly physical hard drives with data into the country, since transferring huge volumes of data over the internet could take months. Before traveling, the company's engineers in China spent more than eight weeks optimizing the data sets and adjusting the AI training program, knowing it would be hard to make major tweaks once the data was out of the country. The Chinese engineers had turned to the same Malaysian data center last July, working through a Singaporean subsidiary. As Nvidia and its vendors began to conduct stricter audits on the end users of AI chips, the Chinese company was asked by the Malaysian data center late last year to work through a Malaysian entity, which the companies thought might trigger less scrutiny. The Chinese company registered an entity in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's capital, listing three Malaysian citizens as directors and an offshore holding company as its parent, according to a corporate registry document. To avoid raising suspicions at Malaysian customs, the Chinese engineers packed their hard drives into four different suitcases. Last year, they traveled with the hard drives bundled into one piece of luggage. They returned to China recently with the results -- several hundred gigabytes of data, including model parameters that guide the AI system's output. The procedure, while cumbersome, avoided having to bring hardware such as chips or servers into China. That is getting more difficult because authorities in Southeast Asia are cracking down on transshipments through the region into China.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More than a dozen private browsing apps on Apple and Google's app stores have undisclosed ties to Chinese companies, leaving user data at risk of exposure to the Chinese government, according to a new report from the Tech Transparency Project. From a report: Thirteen virtual private network (VPN) apps on Apple's App Store and 11 apps on Google's Play Store have ties to Chinese companies, the tech watchdog group said in the report released Thursday. Chinese law requires Chinese companies to share data with the government upon request, creating privacy and security risks for American users. Several of the apps, including two on both app stores and two others on Google Play Store, have ties to Chinese cybersecurity firm Qihoo 360, which has been sanctioned by the U.S. government, according to the report. The Tech Transparency Project previously identified more than 20 VPN apps on Appleâ(TM)s App Store with Chinese ties in an April report. The iPhone maker has since removed three apps linked to Qihoo 360.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hong Kong authorities have invoked national security laws for the first time to ban the Taiwan-made video game Reversed Front: Bonfire, accusing it of promoting "secessionist agendas, such as 'Taiwan independence' and 'Hong Kong independence.'" Engadget reports: Reversed Front: Bonfire was developed by a group known as ESC Taiwan, who are outspoken critics of the China's Communist Party. The game disappeared from the Apple App Store in Hong Kong less than 24 hours after authorities issued the warning. Google already removed the game from the Play Store back in May, because players were using hate speech as part of their usernames. ESC Taiwan told The New York Times that that the game's removal shows that apps like theirs are subject to censorship in mainland China. The group also thanked authorities for the free publicity on Facebook, as the game experienced a surge in Google searches. The game uses anime-style illustrations and allows players to fight against China's Communist Party by taking on the role of "propagandists, patrons, spies or guerrillas" from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, Mongolia and Xinjiang, which is home to ethnic minorities like the Uyghur. That said, they can also choose to play as government soldiers. In its warning, Hong Kong Police said that anybody who shares or recommends the game on the internet may be committing several offenses, including "incitement to secession, "incitement to subversion" and "offenses in connection with seditious intention." Anybody who has downloaded the game will be considered in "possession of a publication that has a seditious intention," and anybody who provides financial assistance to it will be violating national security laws, as well. "Those who have downloaded the application should uninstall it immediately and must not attempt to defy the law," the authorities wrote.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chinese student enrollment at American universities has dropped to 277,000 in the 2023-24 academic year, down from a peak of 372,000 in 2019-20, according to data in a new report examining shifting global education patterns. The decline accelerated following the State Department's May 28th announcement of an "aggressive" campaign to revoke visas for Chinese students in "critical fields" of science and engineering, as well as those with unspecified Communist Party "connections." The trend reflects broader economic and geopolitical pressures beyond visa restrictions. Chinese families increasingly view American education as too expensive amid China's economic downturn and property market decline, while domestic employers have grown suspicious of foreign-educated graduates. Meanwhile, Chinese students are choosing alternatives including Britain, which hosted nearly 150,000 Chinese students in 2023-24, and regional destinations like Japan, where Chinese enrollment increased to 115,000 in 2023 from under 100,000 in 2019.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China's southernmost province of Hainan is piloting a programme to grant select corporate users broad access to the global internet, a rare move in a country known for having some of the world's most restrictive online censorship, as the island seeks to transform itself into a global free-trade port. From a report: Employees of companies registered and operating in Hainan can apply for the "Global Connect" mobile service through the Hainan International Data Comprehensive Service Centre (HIDCSC), according to the agency, which is overseen by the state-run Hainan Big Data Development Centre. The programme allows eligible users to bypass the so-called Great Firewall, which blocks access to many of the world's most-visited websites, such as Google and Wikipedia. Applicants must be on a 5G plan with one of the country's three major state-backed carriers -- China Mobile, China Unicom or China Telecom -- and submit their employer's information, including the company's Unified Social Credit Code, for approval. The process can take up to five months, HIDCSC staff said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI said it disrupted several attempts [non-paywalled source] from users in China to leverage its AI models for cyber threats and covert influence operations, underscoring the security challenges AI poses as the technology becomes more powerful. From a report: The Microsoft-backed company on Thursday published its latest report on disrupting malicious uses of AI, saying its investigative teams continued to uncover and prevent such activities in the three months since Feb. 21. While misuse occurred in several countries, OpenAI said it believes a "significant number" of violations came from China, noting that four of 10 sample cases included in its latest report likely had a Chinese origin. In one such case, the company said it banned ChatGPT accounts it claimed were using OpenAI's models to generate social media posts for a covert influence operation. The company said a user stated in a prompt that they worked for China's propaganda department, though it cautioned it didn't have independent proof to verify its claim.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Corporate investigators found evidence that Chinese hackers broke into an American telecommunications company in the summer of 2023, indicating that Chinese attackers penetrated the US communications system earlier than publicly known. Investigators working for the telecommunications firm discovered last year that malware used by Chinese state-backed hacking groups was on the company's systems for seven months starting in the summer of 2023, according to two people familiar with the matter and a document seen by Bloomberg News. The document, an unclassified report sent to Western intelligence agencies, doesn't name the company where the malware was found and the people familiar with the matter declined to identify it. The 2023 intrusion at an American telecommunications company, which hasn't been previously reported, came about a year before US government officials and cybersecurity companies said they began spotting clues that Chinese hackers had penetrated many of the country's largest phone and wireless firms. The US government has blamed the later breaches on a Chinese state-backed hacking group dubbed Salt Typhoon. It's unclear if the 2023 hack is related to that foreign espionage campaign and, if so, to what degree. Nonetheless, it raises questions about when Chinese intruders established a foothold in the American communications industry. "We've known for a long time that this infrastructure has been vulnerable and was likely subject to attack," said Marc Rogers, a cybersecurity and telecommunications expert. "What this shows us is that it was attacked, and that going as far back as 2023, the Chinese were compromising our telecom companies." Investigators linked the sophisticated rootkit malware Demodex to China's Ministry of State Security, noting it enabled deep, stealthy access to systems and remained undetected on a U.S. defense-linked company's network until early 2024. A Chinese government spokesperson denied responsibility for cyberattacks and accused the U.S. and its allies of spreading disinformation and conducting cyber operations against China.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"We've officially entered the age of watching robots clobber each other in fighting rings," writes Vice.com. A kick-boxing competition was staged Sunday in Hangzhou, China using four robots from Unitree Robotics, reports Futurism. (The robots were named "AI Strategist", "Silk Artisan", "Armored Mulan", and "Energy Guardian".) "However, the robots weren't acting autonomously just yet, as they were being remotely controlled by human operator teams." Although those ringside human controllers used quick voice commands, according to the South China Morning Post: Unlike typical remote-controlled toys, handling Unitree's G1 robots entails "a whole set of motion-control algorithms powered by large [artificial intelligence] models", said Liu Tai, deputy chief engineer at China Telecommunication Technology Labs, which is under research institute China Academy of Information and Communications Technology. More from Vice: The G1 robots are just over 4 feet tall [130 cm] and weigh around 77 pounds [35 kg]. They wear gloves. They have headgear. They throw jabs, uppercuts, and surprisingly sharp kicks... One match even ended in a proper knockout when a robot stayed down for more than eight seconds. The fights ran three rounds and were scored based on clean hits to the head and torso, just like standard kickboxing... Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: China's Ministry of Commerce is meeting with some of the country's biggest automakers to discuss whether the industry is using a loophole to mask weakening sales. Reuters adds: It comes after Great Wall Motor's Chairman Wei Jianjun said in an interview with Sina Finance last week that a phenomenon called "secondhand cars with zero mileage" had emerged in the Chinese market as a result of the industry's years-long price war. The phenomenon, he said, involved cars that had been registered and had licence plates -- marking them as sold -- but had never been driven being sold in the secondhand market. Wei said that at least 3,000 to 4,000 vendors on Chinese used car platforms were selling such cars. The source said the tactic was seen as a potential method within the industry for automakers and dealers to support new car sales as they try to meet aggressive sales targets.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China has achieved substantial technological advances across robotics, AI, and semiconductor manufacturing as part of a seven-year self-reliance campaign that has tripled the country's research and development spending to $500 billion annually. Chinese robot manufacturers captured nearly half of their domestic market by 2023, up from a quarter of installations just years earlier, while AI startups now rival OpenAI and Google in capabilities. The progress extends to semiconductors, where Huawei released a high-end smartphone powered by what industry analysts believe was a locally-produced advanced processor, despite U.S. export controls targeting China's chip access. Morgan Stanley projects China's self-sufficiency in graphics processing units will jump from 11% in 2021 to 82% by 2027. Chinese companies have been purchasing as many industrial robots as the rest of the world combined, enabling highly automated factories that can operate in darkness. In space technology, Chinese firms won five of 11 gold medals when U.S. think tanks ranked the world's best commercial satellite systems last year, compared to four for American companies.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China launched 12 satellites on Wednesday as part of the âoeThree-Body Computing Constellation,â the worldâ(TM)s first dedicated orbital computing network led by ADA Space and Zhejiang Lab. SpaceNews reports: A Long March 2D rocket lifted off at 12:12 a.m. Eastern (0412 UTC) May 14 from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. Insulation tiles fell away from the payload fairing as the rocket climbed into a clear blue sky above the spaceport. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announced a fully successful launch, revealing the mission to have sent 12 satellites for a space computing constellation into orbit. Commercial company ADA Space released further details, stating that the 12 satellites form the "Three-Body Computing Constellation," which will directly process data in space, rather than on the ground, reducing reliance on ground-based computing infrastructure. The constellation will be capable of a combined 5 peta operations per second (POPS) with 30 terabytes of onboard storage. The satellites feature advanced AI capabilities, up to 100 Gbps laser inter-satellite links and remote sensing payloads -- data from which will be processed onboard, reducing data transmission requirements. One satellite also carries a cosmic X-ray polarimeter developed by Guangxi University and the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), which will detect, identify and classify transient events such as gamma-ray bursts, while also triggering messages to enable followup observations by other missions. [...] The company says the constellation can meet the growing demand for real-time computing in space, as well as help China take the lead globally in building space computing infrastructure, seize the commanding heights of this future industry. The development could mark the beginning of space-based cloud computing as a new capability, as well as open a new arena for strategic competition with the U.S. You can watch a recording of the launch here.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

President Donald Trump's administration has taken a tougher stance on Chinese technology advances, warning companies around the world that using AI chips made by Huawei could trigger criminal penalties for violating US export controls. From a report: The commerce department issued guidance to clarify that Huawei's Ascend processors were subject to export controls because they almost certainly contained, or were made with, US technology. Its Bureau of Industry and Security, which oversees export controls, said on Tuesday it was taking a more stringent approach to foreign AI chips, including "issuing guidance that using Huawei Ascend chips anywhere in the world violates US export controls." But people familiar with the matter stressed that the bureau had not issued a new rule, but was making it clear to companies that Huawei chips are likely to have violated a measure that requires hard-to-get licences to export US technology to the Chinese company.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The United States and China said Monday they reached an agreement to temporarily reduce the tariffs [non-paywalled source] they have imposed on each other in an attempt to defuse the trade war threatening the world's two largest economies. From a report: In a joint statement, the countries said they would suspend their respective tariffs for 90 days while they negotiate. Under the agreement, the United States would reduce the tariff on Chinese imports to 30 percent from its current 145 percent, while China would lower its import duty on American goods to 10 percent from 125 percent. "We concluded that we have a shared interest," said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at a news conference in Geneva where U.S. and Chinese officials met over the weekend. "The consensus from both delegations is that neither side wanted a decoupling," he said. The agreement breaks an impasse that had brought trade between China and the United States to a halt. Many American businesses had suspended orders, holding out hope that the two countries could strike a deal to bring down the tariff rates while raising the spectre of price increases.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.