GUANGZHOU/TOKYO — Chinese drone maker EHang is preparing to launch a commercial air taxi operation within the year, which could make it the first company in the world to do so. “In 2025, we’ll open tour routes for aerial sightseeing in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, and in Hefei, Anhui province,” EHang Vice President He Tianxing told…
SYDNEY/SHANGHAI — China’s rapid rollout of solar and wind power generation is driving investment in energy storage systems, and the vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) is emerging as a key technology. Australian chemical engineer Maria Skyllas-Kazacos always knew that one day the innovation that she and her team at the University of New South Wales…
NEW YORK — Chinese battery makers are targeted for new restrictions in the U.S. under legislation that would bar the Homeland Security Department from procuring clean energy technology made by six companies. The House of Representatives passed the “Decoupling from Foreign Adversarial Battery Dependence Act” last week. The bill advances to the Senate, where it likely…
HONG KONG — Excitement is mingling with skepticism as Chinese tech companies that hope to be seen as “the next DeepSeek” roll out one artificial intelligence breakthrough after another. In one of the most recent examples, early access codes for Manus AI are reportedly changing hands for thousands of dollars amid a frenzy of online…
BARCELONA, Spain — China’s leading smartphone maker Honor Device on Sunday said it will invest $10 billion over the next five years to accelerate the company’s artificial intelligence developments. Honor CEO James Li Jian unveiled the initiative, dubbed the Alpha plan, to turn the company into an all-out AI solutions provider, with visions of building more…
TOKYO — Asia funds and U.S. investors are rotating capital into Chinese tech stocks, analysts say, driving a rally set off by the AI chatbot DeepSeek and support for the private sector by China’s president. The Hang Seng Tech Index, a gauge of the top tech companies listed in Hong Kong, has surged more than…
HONG KONG — Chinese President Xi Jinping met with a group of prominent private entrepreneurs including billionaire Jack Ma on Monday, a sign that Beijing sees the technology industry as a key spark for firing up sluggish economic growth. Footage shown on Chinese state media confirmed the attendance of Ma, founder of the e-commerce conglomerate…
Katsuji Nakazawa is a Tokyo-based senior staff and editorial writer at Nikkei. He spent seven years in China as a correspondent and later as China bureau chief. He was the 2014 recipient of the Vaughn-Ueda International Journalist prize. The U.S. threat to take back control of the Panama Canal and the resultant controversy have taken…
TAIPEI — Chinese chip and chip equipment makers blacklisted by the U.S. are turning to universities and state-backed chip labs and “pilot production lines” to keep their development efforts on track. Facilities in major cities from Wuhan to Wuxi to Ningbo offer vital test production and verification services that help accelerate China’s chip developments, often…
TAIPEI/BEIJING — When a team of Huawei engineers arrived in Jiangyin two years ago, they had an urgent mission: turn little-known supplier SJ Semiconductor into a competitive player in chip packaging and stacking technologies. Chip packaging is becoming almost as important as chip manufacturing itself in the race to build ever more powerful AI semiconductors….