No Government Penny
“The government will not give us a penny.” Liang Wenfeng just broke Washington’s favourite DeepSeek story. A transcript of 118 investor answers reveals a very different narrative.
Artificial Intelligence
Open Weights: The Policy Split
NVIDIA, Microsoft, Meta and 22 others signed a letter that, read carefully, is a lobbying front to keep Chinese open-weight models legal in America. Washington sees a geopolitical threat. Silicon Valley sees a supply chain opportunity.
China’s Bid to Flood the World with Cheap AI, Said Bloomberg. Half Right.
China’s Bid to Flood the World with Cheap AI, Said Bloomberg. Half Right. On Friday at 8:36am, Bloomberg published a sweeping story on China’s plan to flood the world with cheap AI. I am quoted in it, mapping DeepSeek’s investors to the layers of the industry. Sixteen hours before that story ran, 29 countries signed … Read more
The Oversupply of AI Talent: How China turned mathematical conditioning into a grassroots industrial workforce
The Oversupply of AI Talent: How China turned mathematical conditioning into a grassroots industrial workforce Those poor Chinese kids are building the most advanced AI in the world. If you look at the CVs of the researchers and entrepreneurs catching up to Anthropic and ChatGPT at a fraction of the token cost, the old playbook … Read more
Trump, the Nation Builder: How an Accidental Architect Built the Nation of Engineers
Trump, the Nation Builder: How an Accidental Architect Built the Nation of Engineers As Air Force One touches down in a self-assured Beijing this May 14th, 2026, a curious moniker echoes across the Chinese internet: Chuan Jianguo (川建国)—or “Trump, the Nation Builder”. It is a title born of exquisite geopolitical irony. To the Chinese public, … Read more
The Robot Belt Weekly: China’s Top 10 Tech Stories
The Robot Belt Weekly: China’s Top 10 Tech Stories May 3–10, 2026 | The Intelligence Briefing from Shenzhen #1 DeepSeek’s \$45B Gambit: China’s AI Crown Jewel Finally Opens Its Doors Source: TechCrunch | TechNode | The Silicon Review DeepSeek is reportedly shifting from its “maverick” roots to a mainstream powerhouse, eyeing a staggering $45 billion … Read more
The AI Dove of East Asia
The AI Dove of East Asia Make love(AI), not war. 🕊️ Did you know that in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, the pronunciation of the word for “love” is “ai”? It is a poetic coincidence that this shared linguistic heritage perfectly mirrors the acronym for Artificial Intelligence. Perhaps this is a sign that AI could be … Read more
Xi Jinping’s fellow alumni are dominating China’s list of new billionaires
Before Xi Jinping became China’s president, his fellow Tsinghua University alumni were certainly successful, but they weren’t exactly the undisputed kings of the billionaire rankings. Recently, however, the narrative has shifted dramatically. A highly concentrated group of nine companies, all originating from Tsinghua’s alumni networks and faculties, have either achieved unicorn status or gone public. … Read more
Top 10 Chinese Tech News Highlights of the Week (20–26 March 2026)
Top 10 Chinese Tech News Highlights of the Week (20–26 March 2026) 1. Galaxy General’s Humanoid Robot Engages in Unscripted Tennis Rallies Sector: Humanoid Robots Key Facts: Beijing-based Galaxy General Robot demonstrated its humanoid robot playing real-time, multi-round tennis rallies with a human. Powered by its proprietary “LATENT” algorithm, the robot learns motion logic from … Read more
The Mathematical Illusion of “Aiming Higher”: Why China’s Sub-5% Growth is a Structural Certainty
The Mathematical Illusion of “Aiming Higher”: Why China’s Sub-5% Growth is a Structural Certainty The shift from demographic dividend to intelligent capital: Automation is the necessary macroeconomic response to a shrinking workforce. The Economist recently published a critique of the Chinese government’s 2026 Government Work Report, arguing that policymakers are “dangerously rooted in the past” … Read more