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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.

ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0 Mini Targets AI Video Cost Barrier With 50% Price Cut

ByteDance has launched Seedance 2.0 Mini, its most cost-efficient AI video generation model to date, pricing API access at RMB 0.023 per thousand tokens and advertising a headline consumer rate of RMB 0.16 per second — a move that halves the cost of its predecessor and sharpens

Alibaba's Qwen Enters Robotics With Embodied AI Suite to Tackle Hardware Fragmentation

Alibaba on Monday launched Qwen-Robot, a three-model embodied intelligence suite that extends its Qwen large model family from the digital realm into physical-world robotic control — a move analysts say could reshape the software infrastructure layer of China's fast-consolidating humanoid robot supply chain. The June

Noetix Robotics Bets on OpenHarmony to Break Humanoid Robots Isolation

Noetix Robotics has debuted what it claims is the industry's first consumer-grade humanoid robot running on OpenHarmony, positioning the move as a direct assault on the "ecosystem island" problem that has long constrained mass-market adoption of bipedal machines. The OpenHarmony-powered N2 robot made

DeepSeek Closes $7.4 Billion Debut Funding Round Under Founder-Control Structure

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has completed its first-ever external funding round, raising more than RMB 50 billion yuan (US$7.4 billion) through an unconventional deal structure designed to preserve founder control — a milestone that underscores both the company's rising stature and the intensifying pressures it now

China’s Humanoid Robot Startups Face a New Rival: Automakers With Deeper Pockets

China's humanoid robot pioneers—led by Unitree Robotics and UBTECH Robotics — are entering the most consequential phase of their short existence, as cash-rich automakers including XPeng and Li Auto pivot aggressively into a market the startups spent years building from scratch. The competitive inflection point arrived on

Enflame Technology Goes Public, Reshaping China's AI Chip Landscape Amid Tencent Reliance

China's "GPU Big Four" have now all reached public markets, but Enflame's approval lays bare a structural paradox: the same Tencent relationship that generated 83.79% of its 2025 revenue is simultaneously its most durable competitive moat and its most visible existential risk. Enflame

DJI Launches Osmo Pocket 4P With Dual Cameras, Targeting Pro Creators

The Osmo Pocket 4P marks DJI's most deliberate pivot yet — from a pocket stabilizer to a miniaturized cinema system — as the company bets that a dedicated imaging device can carve durable territory even as smartphone cameras approach professional-grade capability. DJI officially unveiled the Osmo Pocket 4P on

Li Auto Bets Full-Stack Silicon on Embodied Intelligence, Targets Tesla FSD Parity by Q4 2026

Li Auto has staked its next competitive chapter on a vertically integrated AI stack — proprietary silicon, unified driving models, and edge-native language intelligence — drawing the clearest battle lines yet against Tesla's Full Self-Driving in the world's largest EV market. At a software and embodied

Zhipu AI Shares Surge 33% After U.S. Export Controls Ground Anthropic's Latest Models

Shares of Zhipu AI surged as much as 47.6% in Hong Kong trading on June 15, 2026, setting a record single-day turnover since its listing, before closing up 32.82% with a total market capitalization exceeding HK$649.6 billion. The rally was triggered by a confluence of

ChinaBiz Briefing | BYD’s German Breakthrough, DJI’s US Lawsuit, and Chip Supply Chain Pivot

Today’s briefing highlights a structural transition across China’s technology and automotive sectors. As Chinese EV makers breach the walls of legacy European markets and semiconductor firms build robust domestic supply chains, domestic hardware competition is reaching a boiling point. From a massive battery inventory overhang to high-stakes