August 2024
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HOW CHINA MADE A DIFFERENCE THIS MONTH
Pride and Prejudice
The most remarkable event in August was the Paris Olympics, where China matched the U.S.'s 40 gold medals. In the context of the tense geopolitical landscape between the U.S. and China, this felt like a win-win for both nations. However, the victory was marred by controversy. When 20-year-old swimmer Pan Zhanle won gold in the men’s 100-meter freestyle, setting a new world record, he was accused of cheating. An Australian swim expert claimed it was not humanly possible to achieve such a result. Similar allegations were made against the Chinese swimming team after winning gold in the 4x100-meter men’s relay, a race that ended the U.S.'s decade-long dominance. Such prejudice against Chinese athletes isn't new, as China has faced doping allegations in the past.
However, in 2022, the World Anti-Doping Agency found that Chinese athletes outperformed most countries, including the U.S., in terms of negative doping results. In 2024, Chinese athletes were tested for doping 21 times. This raises the question: Why was American swimmer Michael Phelps celebrated globally when he broke records at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, even in China, while Chinese athletes are accused of cheating when they win? Are the Olympics reflecting today's geopolitics?
In her ?article “Beyond the Chinese Dreams,” Amber Zhang highlights how Chinese hurdler Wu Yanni captured attention with her smile, outgoing personality, and flamboyant style, saying, “I just want to be myself.” What was particularly striking at the Paris Olympics were the sports in which Chinese athletes reached the podium for the first time. Traditionally, China excels in ping pong, badminton, gymnastics, diving, and synchronized swimming, and they won many medals in these categories. But this time, young Chinese athletes also claimed victories in emerging sports like field hockey, tennis, BMX freestyle, beach volleyball, canoeing, breakdancing, and wall climbing. The youngest competitor ever at the Olympics, an 11-year-old Chinese skater, provided a glimpse into the changing preferences of Chinese youth who are pursuing their own passions and working hard to achieve their dreams.
One noticeable change was how these Chinese athletes expressed pride in their victories. Unlike in previous editions, where they typically displayed modesty in line with traditional Chinese values, they confidently spoke about winning not only for China but for themselves. Tennis player Zheng Qingwen, who won gold in women’s singles, was dubbed “Queen Wen” and embraced the title with pride. The Chinese athletes in Paris exhibited a different demeanor—brimming with self-confidence. They were celebrated on Chinese social media for being the best versions of themselves, not just for winning medals. Chinese people are now prioritizing their "own dreams" over the nation’s "Chinese Dream."
When Pan Zhanle was confronted with accusations from Western experts that his achievement was "not humanly possible," his calm and confident response summed up the spirit of Chinese Gen Z: "I don't pay attention to their doubts about me. It's their problem if they can't achieve it. If we [Chinese athletes] can do it, it proves that we are strong. We've been tested for doping so many times, and it's affected us. We are the cleanest and purest. That's how we won the championship." He added, "I think the Australian expert was right. It would be better if he said it more often, to mislead the Westerners so we can rise even higher." We have been warned!
This individualistic winning mentality reflects the rapid changes in Chinese society. China's Gen Z is a generation that balances traditional values with modern, global influences and a personal perspective. They are better educated, more self-confident, and more aware of the world and themselves than previous generations, which made China wealthy. They will make China smart, talented and proud.
CHINESE INNOVATION NEWS – AUGUST 2024
1. Wukong’s Black Myth AAA game popularity brings unexpected global success
2. Shanghai's First Humanoid Robots Plant to Start Deliveries in October
3. Chinese scientists devise method to get water from the moon’s surface
4. China's 1,000 km/h maglev train completes demonstration test
5. Are China’s vast bamboo forests the answer to forever fossil plastics?
6. China now global leader in 90% of critical tech research according to ASPI
7. New cathode material for solid lithium batteries
8. China Generative AI updates August 2024
(Click the links in titles below to read a larger news article on each topic)
A Chinese game called “Black Myth: Wukong” has taken the global gaming community by storm. Seemingly out of nowhere, the low-profile studio Game Science released China’s first AAA video game on August 20th, and it quickly became a blockbuster. In just three days, over 10 million copies were sold (priced at US $37 in China and US $60 in the USA), generating half a billion USD in revenue. The game's popularity even caused a shortage of Sony’s PlayStation 5 in China. It is poised to become one of the biggest AAA game hits of 2024.
This marks a significant shift in the Chinese gaming industry. Traditionally, Chinese studios—often supported by Tencent or NetEase—have focused on mobile games, which allow them to charge players micropayments for in-game purchases. This strategy reduces the financial risks of developing big games that could take years to create but may either succeed or fail. Game Science started developing Black Myth: Wukong in 2018 with just 13 staff members, releasing a promotional video in 2020 to attract new talent. The excitement around the project led the company to recruit 140 people for their new Hangzhou office. After six years of intense development, this sprawling 3D action game has become the hottest single-player title, placing it in the same league as some of the world’s biggest games. Its success has given millions of Chinese gamers a confidence boost, proving that China can develop high-quality, complex, and creative AAA console games. A new era for China’s gaming industry has arrived.
What’s particularly fascinating is that the story is based on the 16th-century novel Journey to the West. I read the 100-chapter, 2,000-page novel 35 years ago when I was studying Chinese in university, and I loved it. I was drawn to it partly because I’m a “monkey” according to Chinese astrology, and I was preparing for my own “Journey to the East.” Reading it helped me understand traditional Chinese culture, philosophy, morality, and social values. I think it’s time to read it again after all these years—or maybe I’ll start by playing the Wukong game. If you’re a gamer, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Mark my words: humanoid robots will be the next big thing in China! Today, we may still joke about whether these robots can do the dishes or how strange it would be to talk to a robot that looks like it just escaped from Madame Tussauds. Great for places like Disneyland or Hollywood, but who in their right mind would want a hyperrealistic humanoid robot mimicking them in their living room? Think again! This is happening in China, and it’s about to take the world by storm. As you can tell, I’m a believer.
Chinese robot manufacturers are aiming to replicate the country’s global success in smartphones and electric vehicles. During the five-day 2024 World Robot Conference, China showcased more than two dozen humanoid robots, with Tesla’s Optimus being the only foreign competitor present. The expo featured several examples powered by large language models (LLMs) to make their conversations more humanlike. Equipped with sensors, these robots can "watch" and "listen" by processing text, audio, and video. While some robots were designed for industrial tasks like automated stacking and material handling in factories, others were built to greet customers in shops or assist before human staff arrived.
The story that also caught my attention was the announcement from robot maker Agibot at the expo. Starting in October, they will begin delivering humanoid robots from their factory in Shanghai. So far, their robots are either bipedal or wheeled, but the company has entered the final stage for mass production of its humanoid robot, the Lingxi X1, which will cover a wide range of applications. What’s exciting is that the Lingxi X1 will be open-source, with Agibot planning to release its design materials and code to encourage developers to contribute to the development and manufacturing of humanoid robots. The rise of the machines is coming—from China!
Chinese scientists have developed a method to extract water from the moon’s soil, a potentially crucial step towards establishing a lunar research base. This technique involves extracting hydrogen and oxygen from lunar soil at extremely high temperatures, and it has been described as "highly practical" by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
Earlier efforts focused on finding natural water reserves on the moon, but Chinese researchers devised this new method after studying lunar rocks brought back to Earth by China’s Chang’e-5 mission in 2020 (newsletter, June 2024). They discovered that some minerals in the moon’s soil—especially ilmenite, an oxide mineral—store large amounts of hydrogen due to billions of years of exposure to the solar wind. When the soil is heated, the hydrogen chemically reacts with iron oxides in the minerals, producing significant amounts of water, along with iron and ceramic glass.
Once temperatures exceed 1,000 degrees Celsius, the lunar soil begins to melt, releasing water in vapor form. The researchers concluded that one gram of lunar soil could yield about 51 to 76 milligrams of water. A tonne of lunar soil could produce approximately 50 liters of water. While this isn’t a solution for the 8 billion people on Earth, it could provide enough water for moon exploration. Additionally, the iron produced as a byproduct could be used to manufacture electronic equipment on the moon.
This breakthrough could be a milestone in the quest to locate natural ice deposits at the moon’s poles. China plans to conduct three more missions as part of the Chang’e lunar program, with the goal of building a lunar base by 2027.
In the February 2023 newsletter, I mentioned that China had completed its first test of a pod traveling at 50 km/h through a 2 km non-vacuum tube. This month, CASIC successfully tested the UHS maglev in low-vacuum conditions on the same track, achieving promising results toward its target speed of up to 1,000 km/h. According to CGTN, "the test showed that the maximum speed and suspension height of the vehicle were consistent with the preset values." While specific details weren't disclosed, it was confirmed that all systems functioned as expected, with the train's speed and suspension height matching the preset values for the test.
CASIC plans to push the T-Flight to its full 1,000 km/h top speed in the second phase of testing, which will require a longer track—around 60 km in length. A six-year-old CASIC video even suggested there could be a phase three, targeting an astounding speed of 4,000 km/h (2,485 mph).
While this may be theoretically possible, I’m not entirely sure about the practicality of traveling from Beijing to Shanghai in just 25 minutes—though it does seem like we’re edging closer to "teleportation." What would happen if the tube suddenly depressurized? Can we really shoot passengers through a low-vacuum tube at such high speeds and expect them all to stay intact? I love the pace of progress in China, but I’d prefer to keep my body’s atoms in place.
?A team of Chinese scientists working to develop bamboo as a biodegradable alternative to plastics has discovered a process to turn bamboo into viable products.
?Bamboo is known for its rapid growth, biodegradability, renewability, and eco-friendliness, making it a promising substitute for plastics. China, with the largest bamboo forests in the world, is in a prime position to explore this potential. However, significant challenges remain in making bamboo as versatile as plastic. Bamboo-starch composites have been held back by poor mechanical strength, water sensitivity, and high processing costs, preventing its widespread adoption as a replacement for everyday plastics.
To overcome these issues, the Chinese team developed a method to enhance bamboo’s plasticity by altering its cellular structure before hot-pressing it into a water-resistant and recyclable plastic. The process involved grinding bamboo into powder and using eco-friendly chemicals to remove some of the lignin—the organic substance that binds cell structures and gives bamboo its rigidity—while disrupting the crystalline structure of cellulose. Since the material doesn’t melt during heating, it behaves like a thermosetting plastic, not a thermoplastic. This means it can be ?recycled by grinding it into a powder, mixing it with water, and hot-pressing it again. In soil burial tests, the bamboo plastic nearly completely degraded after 90 days.
If I were still 30 years old, the entrepreneur in me would be eager to meet these researchers at the China National Bamboo Research Centre, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, and figure out how to help them commercialize this incredible bamboo technology!
In my March 2023 newsletter, I discussed a report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), which found that China was leading in 37 out of 44 critical technologies based on research paper citations. The ASPI has since extended its analysis to 64 technology categories, and this updated report shows that China has taken the top spot in 57 areas - nearly 90% - for papers published between 2019 and 2023. This marks a significant shift from the 2003-2007 period when the U.S. led in 60 of these categories, with China topping just three.
?While ASPI, which is partially funded by U.S. defense organizations, may have a political motive to urge the U.S. and Australian governments to invest more in critical technologies, the data speaks for itself. China is clearly leading and dominating critical technology fields, including those with dual-use applications.
China has developed a new cathode material that could significantly increase the rechargeability of all-solid-state lithium batteries, potentially improving their commercial viability. These batteries, which use solid electrolytes, are less prone to leakage and combustion compared to traditional liquid lithium-ion batteries.
The new cathode material offers major safety and performance enhancements. It achieves electronic and ionic conductivity over 1,000 times higher than traditional battery cathode materials, enabling smoother charge and discharge cycles without the need for conductive additives. This simplifies the battery manufacturing process and boosts overall performance. Remarkably, even after 5,000 charge and discharge cycles, the material retains 80 percent of its original capacity.
The researchers were initially inspired by a 2008 paper by Nobel chemistry laureate John Bannister Goodenough, which suggested that the parent material for this cathode could have excellent ionic conductivity. However, they found that its ionic conductivity was lower than expected, while its electronic conductivity was high. To address this, they first improved the ionic conductivity by doping the material with germanium. Then, they enhanced its electronic conductivity by replacing sulfur with selenium, resulting in the new material. Germanium could eventually be replaced by silicon to reduce costs for commercialization.
8. China Generative AI updates of August 2024
A new ITIF report highlights China’s emergence as a global leader in AI research. Tsinghua University has become a hub for Chinese AI startups, while Chinese large language models (LLMs) are rapidly closing the gap with their U.S. counterparts. Although the U.S. still leads in private investment, China’s AI development is largely driven by state support. Additionally, China’s open-source LLM ecosystem is advancing quickly.
By the end of 2023, the number of effective artificial intelligence invention patents in China reached 378,000, reflecting a year-on-year growth rate of over 40 percent - 1.4 times higher than the global average.
In the first half of 2024, China added 237,000 new AI-related companies, following 467,000 new companies established in 2023, bringing the total to 1.67 million. Notably, 90% of these companies were created after 2017.?
Alibaba develops new video generation tool based on Sora’s open-source model Alibaba has adapted the OpenSora video generation tool workflow into a new product called Tora, which transforms raw video into high-quality video-text pairs and uses an optical flow estimator for trajectory extraction. Alibaba also has another AI video generation tool called EMU. It is unclear when Tora will be available to the public.
Alibaba launches maths-specific AI models said to outperform LLMs from OpenAI, Google Alibaba’s Qwen2-Math-72B instruct large language model (LLM) outperformed U.S.-developed LLMs in mathematics benchmarks, surpassing GPT-4o, Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro, and Meta Platforms’ Llama-3.1-405B.
Moonshot AI founder builds business in the mould of ByteDance, OpenAI Yang Zhilin, the 31-year-old founder of Moonshot AI, is China’s most sought-after entrepreneur in the large language model (LLM) industry. His company, now valued at US$3.3 billion, is backed by Tencent and Alibaba. Yang aims to combine the technological idealism of OpenAI with the business philosophy of ByteDance.
Lenovo, which leads the global PC market with about 23% market share, sees AI-powered PCs as a way to drive future demand in today's stagnant market. In China, Lenovo collaborates with Alibaba's large language models (LLMs), while outside China, it plans to cater to other market demands for LLMs.
Kunlun Tech, an online game publisher, has launched an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can generate scripts, characters, plots, storyboards, dialogue, and music to create 60-second short video dramas.
Xiaomi-backed Chinese company Superhexa is the latest to join the competition with AI-equipped smart glasses priced at US$100, significantly undercutting the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, which are priced at US$300.
A growing trend among Chinese start-ups is to position themselves as global corporations, targeting overseas markets from the outset. Many find it easier to first commercialize their products abroad and then develop them for the domestic Chinese market.
?Baidu, Alibaba, SenseTime, iFlytek, and other Chinese companies provided AI solutions at the Paris Olympics to assist athletes and referees with real-time analysis, enhance the viewer experience, and support judging decisions. They even deployed virtual athletes to greet visitors. Western media seemed to have more attention for the controversy of the games than its technology.
If you know of any other breaking China innovation news from August 2024 that I missed, do let me know so I can add it in next month’s newsletter!
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5 个月?? Very informative ! ?????
Automotive Software Strategy Development and Execution
5 个月I like the graphics and enjoyed every version of the Wukong movie series very much. :)
I work with leaders, brands, and organizations that want to get “un-stuck” and build Momentum. @Relieve Clinics @Livelinx @Enorm.health ?? Panel Expert @Healthusiasm.
5 个月Anthony Beth Anthony De Brackeleire. We had the pleasure of having Pascal on our Healthusiasm podcast. A revelation. Thought it would be interesting for you both to stay up to date on the effect of China on our macro-reality.
Campaign Director for Smalltalk Renaissance
5 个月Great update! Thanks for pointing me to the updated ASPI report. I did not know about it. ??
Campaign Director for Smalltalk Renaissance
5 个月You know what amazes me? Anti-China organizations like ASPI and Open Society Foundations (founded by George Soros) do not manipulate their data to portray China negatively. Yes, the data speaks for itself. Also, note that Ipsos has often been coerced by the US to leave China out of its survey reports because the data portray China positively. Again, Ipsos will not fudge the data.