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Dora Zhang

Editor covering China's business and technology, focused on AI, electric vehicles, autonomous driving, and robotics, tracking industry developments, innovation, and market dynamics.

ChinaBiz Briefing | Tencent Lead WAIC, Huawei Leads Smartphones, Zhipu Builds Silicon Stack

China's technology sector is undergoing a simultaneous stress test on two fronts: AI infrastructure is straining under demand that has outpaced supply by a factor of three, while a memory super-cycle is redrawing the smartphone competitive map in ways that may persist through the decade. Today'

Xiaomi Raises 2026 Target to 110M as Memory Crisis Reshapes Smartphones

Xiaomi has quietly executed one of the boldest strategic pivots in the global smartphone industry this year: raising its full-year 2026 shipment target by 16% to 110 million units — even as the company posted two consecutive quarters of double-digit year-on-year sales declines and memory chip costs

China's Flying Car Industry: What It Is, Why It's Hard, and Where It's Headed

What Exactly Is a Flying Car — and What It Is Not The term "flying car" gets used loosely, but the distinction matters enormously for understanding the industry's real challenges. A flying car, in its most precise definition, is a crewed aerial vehicle that takes off from

Kimi's Subscription Freeze Exposes China’s AI Compute Crunch and the Billion-Dollar Arms Race

China's AI sector hit a structural inflection point this week as Moonshot AI suspended new consumer subscriptions for its Kimi assistant just 72 hours after launching the Kimi K3 model, revealing a demand-supply chasm that no single company—or chipmaker—can close quickly. The freeze, triggered by

Zhipu AI Bets on Domestic Silicon With 1GW Data Center, Acquisition to Break Free From Nvidia

Zhipu AI is executing the most aggressive compute-independence strategy seen among China's independent large-model companies, commissioning a 1-gigawatt domestic data center, acquiring compiler software firm Zhongke Jiahe for hundreds of millions of renminbi, and opening preliminary talks on custom AI chip development — a three-layer

China AI Shifts From Parameters to ROI at WAIC 2026, as Tencent Dominates and ByteDance Stays Away

Tencent emerges as the defining force at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, deploying a full-stack agent ecosystem while the industry collectively abandons benchmark theater in favor of deployable, revenue-generating applications—a structural shift that redraws competitive lines across China's technology sector. The contrast

Li Auto Spins Off Chip Unit, Signaling Shift From Carmaker to Full-Stack AI Hardware Contender

Li Auto has incorporated a dedicated chip subsidiary in Shanghai, formalizing a strategic pivot that positions the electric-vehicle maker as a vertically integrated AI hardware company rather than simply an automotive group with an in-house silicon team. The new entity, Xinchuang Zhihe Technology, was registered on July 13,

Huawei Seizes China's Top Smartphone Spot as Memory Costs Reshape Market Hierarchy

China's smartphone market contracted for a fifth consecutive quarter in Q2 2026, but the pain was distributed with striking inequality: Huawei emerged with its highest market share since Q4 2020 while mid-tier Android vendors absorbed double-digit shipment declines, a divergence that is fundamentally redrawing the country&

ChinaBiz Briefing | Alibaba's 2.4T Model, WAIC Chip Showdown, CXMT Surge

Today’s developments highlight a rapid maturation across China’s foundational technologies, shifting from localized R&D to global commercialization. A coordinated wave of trillion-parameter AI models and domestic full-stack compute architectures is directly challenging U.S. incumbents. Meanwhile, aggressive capacity expansions in legacy memory chips and

China Auto Hits Record H1 Slump as Leapmotor Rises and NIO Stages Comeback

China's passenger vehicle market delivered its most severe six-month contraction in modern history in H1 2026, with total registrations falling 18.7% year-on-year — yet within the wreckage, a clear hierarchy of winners and losers is crystallizing that will define competitive positioning for the rest of