‘Up or out’: death of bright young scientists highlights China’s ruthless academic system

‘Up or out’: death of bright young scientists highlights China’s ruthless academic system

The death of three prominent young scientists from top Chinese universities in recent months has again put the country’s ambitious science goals and ruthless academic system under scrutiny. While none of their institutions has issued any official statement about the deaths, the cases have once again prompted criticism of China’s flawed talent system, which is…

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China debuts first e-beam lithography machine for commercial use in chipmaking milestone

China debuts first e-beam lithography machine for commercial use in chipmaking milestone

China is set to deliver its first domestically developed e-beam lithography tool for commercial use, advancing its chipmaking capabilities and taking a step forward in the race for technological advancement. Lithography systems – among the most sophisticated machines ever created – are crucial for the mass production of chips, though China remains in the very…

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Chinese scientists double artillery gun lifespan with 2,000-year-old chromium tech upgrade

Chinese scientists double artillery gun lifespan with 2,000-year-old chromium tech upgrade

Scientists in northwest China have doubled the service life of high-temperature, high-pressure artillery barrels by refining a chromium plating technique first used by the Chinese military before 200BC. Bronze swords buried with the Terracotta Army of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, remained sharp and untarnished after more than 2,000 years underground. Microscopic analysis revealed…

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Hangzhou emerges as new tech hub with ‘Little Dragons’ like DeepSeek, Unitree

Hangzhou emerges as new tech hub with ‘Little Dragons’ like DeepSeek, Unitree

Hangzhou, the capital of China’s southeastern Zhejiang province, is rapidly gaining recognition as a leading technology hub in the country with the rise of local start-ups known as the “Six Little Dragons”. Among the hottest of the start-ups right now is DeepSeek, which captured global attention this year for its cost-efficient artificial intelligence (AI) models….

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Explainer | How tech start-up DeepSeek emerged as the unlikely game changer in US-China AI war

Explainer | How tech start-up DeepSeek emerged as the unlikely game changer in US-China AI war

The Hangzhou-based firm over the past several weeks released two powerful new AI models, DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1, that were built at a fraction of the cost and computing power that major tech companies muster to build large language models (LLMs) – the technology underpinning generative AI services like ChatGPT. On social media, the AI community…

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What does rise of AI firm DeepSeek mean for US-China tech war, and the race for talent?

What does rise of AI firm DeepSeek mean for US-China tech war, and the race for talent?

The rise of little-known Chinese tech start-up DeepSeek has exposed weaknesses in America’s “small yard, high fence” strategy to contain China’s technological progress, according to experts. The company’s success has also signalled an intensifying competition between the US and China to win over the brightest AI minds, they said, while noting that China may still…

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