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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.

UBTECH’s U1 Bet: Record Pre-Orders, Cash Burn and the Conversion Challenge

Hot order book, cold stock chart — UBTECH Robotics faces its most consequential commercial test as the July 16 final-payment deadline exposes the gap between consumer curiosity and actual purchasing commitment. The June 30 launch of UBTECH Robotics' U1 companion humanoid triggered an 18% intraday surge on the Hong

DeepSeek Seeks Second Funding Round at $71B Valuation as Infrastructure Push Accelerates

DeepSeek, the Chinese artificial intelligence startup that rattled global AI markets earlier this year, has begun preliminary discussions with new investors for a second funding round at a pre-money valuation of approximately $71 billion — a 37% premium over the post-money valuation established in its first external raise just

ChinaBiz Briefing | China AI Dominance, BYD Reset, ByteDance Drives Autonomy, Huawei Rebound

China's technology and industrial complex is moving on multiple fronts simultaneously this week — and the direction of travel is unmistakable. Chinese AI models have locked in a structural lead on global developer platforms. BYD is compressing its product cycle to near-software cadence. ByteDance is quietly probing autonomous

Huawei Posts 6% Global Smartphone Shipment Growth in Q2 2026, Counterpoint Data Shows

Huawei Technologies recorded a 6% year-on-year increase in global smartphone shipments in the second quarter of 2026, according to research firm Counterpoint, as the Chinese tech giant continued to gain traction on the back of a broadened product lineup spanning flagship and mid-range segments. The growth places

NetShort and DramaWave Lock Up AI Short Drama Duopoly as Overseas Market Hits Maturity Inflection

Two platforms now command 60% of the global AI short drama top 100, signaling a winner-takes-most dynamic that is reshaping how Chinese content studios allocate production budgets overseas. DataEye, a Shenzhen-based entertainment data analytics firm, on July 14, 2026 released its H1 2026 rankings for both overseas

BYD Ends “L” Era as Dynasty Network Pushes Premium With Qin MAX

BYD is executing the most aggressive product-line restructuring in its Dynasty Network's history, retiring the entire "L" suffix generation after roughly 18 months on the market while simultaneously launching a higher-spec "MAX" tier and iterating its workhorse "PLUS" lineup — a

LimX Dynamics Races Toward IPO After Pulling $400M in Six Months, Valuation Hits RMB 15B

Global capital — from Abu Dhabi to Silicon Valley — is crowding into the Pre-IPO round of a humanoid robotics company that filed for corporate restructuring in March, signaling the sector's sharpest financing inflection point yet. LimX Dynamics, the Shenzhen-based general-purpose humanoid robot developer, has closed a

China’s EV Trio Hits $12B — Three Paths, Three Playbooks

Three companies that once traded at multiples of each other have arrived at the same market capitalization — not as a triumph, but as a shared reckoning with a maturing, brutally competitive industry. As of the July 10 U.S. equity close, XPeng traded at approximately $12.5 billion, Li Auto

Chinese AI Models Dominate OpenRouter Rankings for 11 Weeks, Outpacing U.S. Rivals 4-to-1

Chinese large language models now account for more than half of all global API traffic on OpenRouter, the world's largest AI model-routing platform, with weekly token consumption hitting 27.58 trillion in the seven days ended July 12—more than four times the U.S. figure—as

StepX Neo Debut Signals China's Sharpest Bet Yet on Agentic Hardware

StepFun launches what it calls the world's first agent-native smartphone, backed by a 10-plus-partner app ecosystem including Alipay and Meituan — reframing the device as an AI orchestration layer rather than a handset. The Shanghai-based large model unicorn unveiled three products simultaneously on July 13,