For the past two years, China's AI companies have competed on a single axis: whose model performs best. That contest is starting to give way to a harder one — whether those models can actually run, at scale, on chips made in China, as US restrictions on advanced AI chip exports raise the stakes of that question.
Huawei rotating chairman Eric Xu said at the HarmonyOS Ecosystem Conference 2026 in Shenzhen on August 28 that the HarmonyOS ecosystem now has more than 100,000 native applications, while HarmonyOS smartphones can access more than 400,000 apps. As of August 20, the number of devices running HarmonyOS 6 had exceeded 80 million and is expected to surpass 100 million in the fourth quarter of 2026.
China's memory-chip industry is narrowing parts of the technology gap with global leaders on two fronts. YMTC is approaching SK Hynix in NAND revenue share while running a more advanced layer mix, and CXMT is moving deeper into DRAM process technology with mass-produced high-k materials and a broader HBM roadmap.
At the Sustainability Environment Asia Conference 2026, Gunalan Kaniasan, principal for water resources in Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJC) at AWS, outlined strategies for water sustainability across the Asia-Pacific region. As data center demand grows, AWS is actively collaborating with governments and utilities to introduce recycled-water alternatives, navigate regulatory barriers, and test water-credit mechanisms.
At GATE 2026, Kaizhong, a major Chinese commutator maker, used its display to showcase how its automotive business has laid the groundwork for expansion into data centers, dexterous hands, and drones. The company is also targeting new opportunities in Southeast Asia as Chinese automakers deepen their regional footprint.
Huawei's Ascend 910C is already sold out in China, but domestic chips still cannot fully replace Nvidia's H200s. The shortage matters beyond China because AI compute constraints, pricing, and supply chain shifts are reshaping how quickly companies worldwide can deploy advanced inference systems.
Samsung Electronics expects products based on its first-generation zHBM specifications to appear in 2029 or later, giving the 3D memory concept unveiled earlier this month an initial product window. Heat remains a key engineering hurdle as Samsung works to stack HBM directly above AI accelerators.
Competition in China's memory sector is extending beyond wafer capacity and process technology into semiconductor equipment, materials and components. YMTC is expanding its domestic supplier network around its Wuhan fabs, with 17 semiconductor companies signing projects worth more than CNY6 billion in the Wuhan Donghu New Technology Development Zone (China Optics Valley).
Renesas Electronics has opened a physical AI and robotics lab in Beijing, a move that could speed the development of safer, smarter machines for factories, logistics, and homes worldwide. The facility is designed to help customers test, validate, and co-develop robotic systems as physical AI shifts from concept to real-world deployment.
More than a year after Honor first debated the idea internally, its Robot Phone has moved from a contentious concept to a mass-produced commercial product. But the significance of the device extends beyond creating a smartphone with an unconventional form factor.
IntelliEPI said on August 27 that revenue in the second quarter of 2026 was pressured after a Japanese substrate supplier shut down for nearly three weeks during the Golden Week holiday, reducing InP substrate availability and limiting indium phosphide production. The compound semiconductor epitaxy maker said demand for InP products tied to high-speed optical communications in AI data centers remained strong, and that substrate supply, not market demand, was the main short-term constraint.
Capital interest in China has become unusually concentrated on robotics following a state-backed commitment to redirect sizable portions of tech-related incentives from a perfectly mature EV market toward the robotics sector. Since the policy took effect, robot-oriented technologies have surged, with embodied intelligence emerging as one of the most prominent areas of development.
China is setting out a five-year industrial strategy centred on artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors, 6G, robotics and advanced manufacturing, seeking to strengthen the country's manufacturing base while turning emerging technologies into new growth engines.
China's lithium battery industry is shifting from an era of aggressive capacity expansion toward consolidation, as regulators rapidly clear deals aimed at revitalizing existing assets and closing gaps across the supply chain. The unconditional approval of six recent transactions involving batteries, energy storage, and new-energy materials — including one cleared in just 10 days — signals that Beijing sees mergers and acquisitions (M&As) as an increasingly important tool for restructuring an industry squeezed by overcapacity and price wars.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 26 declaring a national emergency over the security of America's electrical grid. It restricts the purchase, import, and installation of certain foreign-made "bulk-power system" equipment on cybersecurity and national-security grounds.
Chinese AI startup MiniMax Group reported a 283.1% increase in revenue, rising from US$30.4 million for the six months ended June 30, 2025, to US$116.6 million for the six months ended June 30, 2026. This growth was primarily driven by the continued expansion of its global user base, surging demand for model inference, and the company's ability to translate model advancements into commercial products and services for global enterprises, developers, and individual users.
