The Pentagon calls this Chinese firm a military company. Its lidar runs US robotaxis anyway
The Pentagon calls this Chinese firm a military company. Its lidar runs US robotaxis anyway

A lidar maker the Pentagon brands a Chinese military company quietly wires up America’s robotaxis, trucks, and even an airport. Nvidia is one of its partners. Hesai makes many of the sensors self-driving machines use to see. The Shanghai firm also sits…

China weighs curbing overseas access to its top AI models
China weighs curbing overseas access to its top AI models

China’s open AI models have been a gift to developers everywhere. Now Beijing may pull them back in. Chinese officials have discussed limiting who outside the country can use the nation’s best AI models, Reuters reports. The Ministry of Commerce ran th…

Canada scores fresh Lotus EVs in first canola-for-cars deal
Canada scores fresh Lotus EVs in first canola-for-cars deal

The canola-for-cars deal cooked up by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Chinese President Xi Jinping is about to bear its most exotic fruit yet: a shipment of sporty new Lotus Eletre EVs set to arrive in Montreal this month.

Camera-free smart-glasses maker Even Realities hits $1bn on a $150M raise
Camera-free smart-glasses maker Even Realities hits $1bn on a $150M raise

Meta has sold millions of camera-equipped smart glasses, and landed in a privacy storm for it. A Shenzhen startup is betting $1bn that the smarter move is to leave the camera off. Even Realities has raised $150m at a $1 billion valuation, TechCrunch re…

China’s Biren raises $892M to build GPUs that can take on Nvidia at home
China’s Biren raises $892M to build GPUs that can take on Nvidia at home

Nvidia can barely sell its best chips in China. A crop of local challengers is racing to fill the gap. One of them just raised nearly $900m to speed up. Shanghai Biren Technology is selling HK$7 billion (about $892.5m) of new shares to boost GPU produc…

Judge grants Alibaba a reprieve from the lobbying ban tied to the Pentagon’s blacklist
Judge grants Alibaba a reprieve from the lobbying ban tied to the Pentagon’s blacklist

A federal judge has ordered the Pentagon to give Alibaba temporary relief from a law that stripped it of every lobbyist it had in Washington, Bloomberg reports. The reprieve stands while the court considers whether the measure is constitutional. The ca…

ByteDance and Alibaba kill custom AI companions as China’s new rules bite
ByteDance and Alibaba kill custom AI companions as China’s new rules bite

ByteDance’s Doubao and Alibaba’s Qwen, two of China’s biggest consumer AI apps, are disabling their customised agent features, the South China Morning Post reports. The move comes days before Beijing’s new rules on humanlike AI interaction services tak…

Kalmar is building – and selling! – these massive electric reach stackers in China
Kalmar is building – and selling! – these massive electric reach stackers in China

Kalmar began building its 45-ton ERG450 electric reach stackers at a Shanghai manufacturing plant back in 2023, aiming to bring heavy-duty cargo handler closer to potential customers across the Asian market. That investment appears to be paying off, wi…

Hong Kong now handles more than half of China’s chip imports
Hong Kong now handles more than half of China’s chip imports

Hong Kong has become the main artery for high-tech goods flowing in and out of China, and its chip trade has hit record levels. The city accounted for more than half of China’s $239bn in semiconductor imports in the first five months of 2026, according…

CATL is building more than 200 battery swap stations EVERY MONTH
CATL is building more than 200 battery swap stations EVERY MONTH

The CATL-backed Choco-SEB battery swap network deployed its 2,000th swapping station June 30th, wrapping up another month of incredibly rapid growth that’s seen the company average more than 200 deployments in each and every month of 2026. (!)