Deep Sea, Deep Space, Deep Thoughts
Science & Technology
Deep-Sea Research Station 2,000 meters beneath the South China Sea a hub for marine science excellence and an advocate of new energy resources.
Because it is open source, Deepseek has more than a billion users and is integrated into smart cloud, smart phone, smart EV and smart robot platforms worldwide.
Peking U. shows first large-scale quantum entanglement on an optical chip smaller than Microsoft’s Majorana, with photonic technology operating at room temperature.
The first two-way adaptive brain-computer interface, BCI, brain-machine learn from each other, not just decode brain signals, making BCIs more reliable.
China has 63% of the global humanoid robot supply chain, 56% of top robot companies and 45% of integrators that customize robots for end-users.
“China continues to show the most impressive progress in humanoid robotics. A common refrain we hear from investors is the lack of Western firms to add to their humanoid portfolio outside of TSLA and NVDA”. Morgan Stanley.
Astrodynamic ingenuity, complex math and precise engine burns delivered 2 satellites, stranded by an LEO rocket failure for a year, into their lunar orbits.
Adding helium triples rocket efficiency, thrust, reduces exhaust temperatures. Very cool.
Laser technology has millimeter resolution at 6 miles, once thought unattainable.
China’s plateauing fuel use unprecedented at its stage of economic development, IEA says. Fuel demand may even fall this year. EVs, economic shifts driving slowdown.
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Driving assistance in every BYD. Entry level Dolphin has a 3-camera cluster + 12 cameras + one 5 mm-wave and 12 ultrasonic radars, free. Great for older drivers.
40% of America’s top AI talent comes from Chinese universities. Stanford Prof and World Labs co-founder Fei-Fei Li, as well as Microsoft’s Chief Scientist in AI, Li Deng.
Trade & Finance
World Bank researchers visited 16,000 shops in China and concluded that China’s GDP was undervalued by $1.4 trillion, pushing its 2022 PPP GDP from 119% of America’s to 125%.
TikTok/Douyin becomes 1st app to hit $6b in annual in-app purchase revenue.
BYD has largest auto cloud and driving data from a consistent hardware configuration across its fleet + 5000 ADAS engineers in one year.
After the first China tariffs, the U.S. took more imports from countries like like Mexico and Vietnam, already extremely integrated into Chinese supply chains. Tariffs appear to be unable to truly decouple the world’s two largest economies.
Chip exports hit a record $160 billion in 2024, up 19% YoY, volume rose 11% to 272 billion, thanks to China’s indigenous 28-nm chip production supply chain.
Marine Economy Creates New Records: gross ocean product, GOP, hit $1.6 trillion in 20024, up 6% YoY, with the Service sector contributing 60% of the total GOP.
Shenzhen, home to 2,200 AI companies and an AI supply chain, has $1.4 billion fund for AI and robotics software, hardware and embodied intelligence.
The world deserves a first (if fuzzy) glance at the totality of China’s industrial policy for chipmaking equipment, so today, we look at equity investments.
Society
China is the least afraid of the various risks in the world, and the only country where no risk scares a majority of people. Only 42% believe the USA is actually a risk to China, and 93% believe the country is well prepared for it. Americans are much more afraid of Chinese than China is afraid of them (57% vs 42%).
Humanoid robot rentals? ‘Every household can own robot”. Vendors offer humanoid robot rentals from 2,500 yuan ($344) to 100,000 yuan ($13,400) per day.
Governance
China has published the world’s largest peer-reviewed study and survey estimates 1,002 healthy snow leopards, more than 10% of the known global population.
Xi met with the hard-core technology founders. China is beginning to dominate global science and technology to a degree previously unseen.
China’s new-energy storage manufacturing supply chain will be internationally competitive by 2027.
Political theorist Daniel A. Bell on China’s melding of Confucius and Marx.
China will refine its support policies for low-income residents and underdeveloped areas after the 5 year transition ends in 2026.
Geopolitics
For defense, aviation, robotics and industrial automation, titanium is critical for manufacturing. But all sources of titanium ore are BRI investments and China produces 60% of the world’s titanium sponge as well.
Beijing’s goal is not necessarily leadership in AI chatbots, but to use the technology to develop exportable, affordable, commercially viable business solutions for lower-income countries. Not ‘frontier AI’, but ‘mass-market AI’.
Defense
Peking University researchers find main cause of defects in gallium nitride, GaN, a critical material for third-generation military electronics.
