Andrew Yao Chi-chih, a world-renowned Chinese computer scientist, said embodied artificial intelligence still lacks key foundations, stressing the need for interpretable “world models” and more diverse data-collection methods. Speaking on Saturday at an industry event in Shanghai, Yao said core capabilities such as “reasoning, planning and control should ultimately be integrated within a unified framework”, noting the importance of world models instead of simulating. He added that “scalable new...

The US approval for Nvidia’s H200 artificial intelligence processors will give China a much-needed boost in computing power rather than pose a direct threat to domestic chips, even though the US chip is more powerful than rivals from Huawei Technologies and Moore Threads, according to analysts. With a total processing performance (TPP) of 15,832, the H200 has surpassed all AI chips made by domestic vendors on the market so far as well as Nvidia’s H20, which was previously the most advanced...

Leading Chinese artificial intelligence start-up Moonshot AI has been singled out as evidence of the “growing depth” of China’s AI industry, according to a new US government report. An increasing number of Chinese companies were now developing world-leading “open-weight” AI models, not just DeepSeek, the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) at the Department of Commerce said on Friday. The CAISI report was the second US government evaluation of a leading Chinese model developer, after...

Humanoid robot maker Unitree Robotics has teased what it calls the world’s first humanoid robot “app store”, a developer platform designed to bring embodied intelligence into everyday life by allowing users to access and control robots directly through their smartphones. The Hangzhou-based robotics unicorn unveiled a centralised programme, dubbed the Unitree Robotics Developer Platform, offering functions such as datasets and remote control programmes for humanoids. Unitree called it the...

China’s leading battery makers for electric cars – Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) and Gotion High-tech – are adding momentum to the country’s efforts to build new-energy vessels, with their latest products supplied to large ocean carriers amid an accelerated decarbonisation drive. Chinese-made pure electric-powered container vessels were also set to extend Beijing’s lead over global rivals in shipbuilding, according to industry officials and analysts. CATL, the world’s largest electric...

US start-up OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT on November 30, three years ago, sent China’s technology industry scrambling to get up to speed on the latest artificial intelligence developments. Chinese government authorities sent urgent requests to various experts, including professors from Tsinghua University, to provide briefings on the implications of generative AI technology, according to people with knowledge of the matter. China’s Big Tech firms and ambitious start-ups rushed to roll out their...

When US tech giant Meta Platforms released its flagship Llama family of artificial intelligence models in February 2023, they were open-sourced, a move that singled it out among global AI model developers at the time. That September, one of the many derivatives of Llama was announced: Alibaba Cloud’s Qwen. The first generation of Qwen adopted Llama’s training process and cited Meta's seminal research findings in its accompanying technical report. Out of deference, the Chinese researchers even...