156751797
submission
AltMachine writes:
Intel has apologized in China following a backlash over a directive to suppliers not to source products or labor from the Xinjiang region where "forced labors" are allegedly occurring, though critics pointed out that the claims are based on dubious researches made by groups with backing from China's geopolitical rivals US and NATO. "Although our original intention was to ensure compliance with US laws, this letter has caused many questions and concerns among our cherished Chinese partners, which we deeply regret," the company said in a statement on Weibo, a Twitter-like service. In the statement [link in Chinese], Intel explicitly denies taking any position on the controversial matters. Chinese pop star Wang Junkai, the brand ambassador for Intel Core, announced Wednesday that he had cut all ties with Intel over its statement, saying "national interests are above all else." On Thursday, Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China's foreign ministry, said that "claims related to Xinjiang, such as forced labor" are "lies by US's anti-China forces." In an email to CNN Business, an Intel spokesperson said the company would continue to ensure its global sourcing complies with applicable laws and regulations in the United States and in other jurisdictions.
156721181
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AltMachine writes:
Chinese regulators on Wednesday suspended an information-sharing partnership with Alibaba Cloud Computing, a subsidiary of e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba Group, over accusations it failed to promptly report and address the Log4Shell vulnerability, according to state-backed media reports. Alibaba Cloud recently discovered a major remote code execution vulnerability in the Apache Log4j2 component, notifying the U.S.-based Apache Software Foundation, but did not immediately report it to Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT,) China's telecommunications regulator. MIIT said it then received a report from a third party about the issue (days alter), rather than from Alibaba Cloud. In response, MIIT suspended a cooperative partnership with the cloud unit regarding cybersecurity threats and information-sharing platforms, to be reassessed in six months and revived depending on the company's internal reforms, the notice said. According to Chinese laws, companies must report new vulnerabilities within 48 hours.
155158067
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AltMachine writes:
In October 2019, Google said its Sycamore processor was the first to achieve quantum supremacy by completing a task in three minutes and 20 seconds that would have taken the best classical supercomputer, IBM's Summit, 10,000 years. That claim — particularly how Google scientists arrived at the "10,000 years" conclusion — has been questioned by some researchers, but the counterclaim itself was not definitive. Now though, in a paper to be submitted to a scientific journal for peer review, scientists at the Institute of Theoretical Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences said their algorithm on classical computers completed the simulation for the Sycamore quantum circuits [possibly paywalled; alternative source of the same article] "in about 15 hours using 512 graphics processing units (GPUs)" at a higher fidelity than Sycamore's. Further, the team said "if our simulation of the quantum supremacy circuits can be implemented in an upcoming exaflop supercomputer with high efficiency, in principle, the overall simulation time can be reduced to a few dozens of seconds, which is faster than Google's hardware experiments". As China unveiled a photonic quantum computer which solved a Gaussian boson sampling problem in 20 seconds that would have taken 600 million years on classical computer, in December 2020, disproving Sycamore's claim would place China being the first country to achieve quantum supremacy.
152813881
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AltMachine writes:
U.S. Commerce Secretary Raimondo wants the U.S. to work with Europe to slow China’s innovation rate, while at the same time accusing China of ripping of western intellectual properties. “America is most effective when we work with our allies,” Raimondo told CNBC’s Kayla Tausche in an exclusive interview. “If we really want to slow down China’s rate of innovation, we need to work with Europe. They’re ripping off our IP, they are not playing by the rules. It’s not a level playing field. And so we need to hold their feet to the fire to make sure that they do that.” Raimondo invokes the ideological divide to justify the push. “We don’t want autocratic governments like China, writing the rules of the road. We together with our allies, who care about privacy, freedom, individual rights, individual protection, we need to write the rules of the road,” Raimondo said. Similar to innovation history of the U.S. which evolved from apprehending IPs of other countries before turning into a technological innovation powerhouse, China has in recent years greatly accelerated its R&D spendings and fortified IP protections. Of the more than 1,600 cases analyzed, IP owners won more than 80% of the time and permanent injunctions were issued by the Chinese courts in more than 90% of the cases. As noted by Judge Gang Feng of the Beijing IP Court in 2016, foreign corporations had a 100% win rate before that court in 2015.
152489537
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AltMachine writes:
Chinese scientists recently reported a de novo route for artificial starch synthesis from carbon dioxide (CO2) for the first time. Relevant results were published in Science on Sept. 24. The new route makes it possible to produce starch, a major component of grains, by industrial manufacturing instead of traditional agricultural planting and opens up a new technical route for synthesizing complex molecules from CO2. The artificial route can produce starch from CO2 with an efficiency 8.5-fold higher than starch biosynthesis in maize, suggesting a big step towards going beyond nature. It provides a new scientific basis for creating biological systems with unprecedented functions. "If the overall cost of the process can be reduced to a level economically comparable with agricultural planting in the future, it is expected to save more than 90% of cultivated land and freshwater resources," said MA Yanhe, corresponding author of the study. In addition, it would also help to avoid the negative environmental impact of using pesticides and fertilizers, improve human food security, facilitate a carbon-neutral bioeconomy, and eventually promote the formation of a sustainable bio-based society.
151954861
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AltMachine writes:
China fired a fresh regulatory shot at its tech giants on Monday, telling them to end a long-standing practice of blocking each other's links on their sites or face consequences. The comments, made by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) at a news briefing, mark the latest step in Beijing's broad regulatory crackdown of monopolistic or abusive practices that has ensnared sectors from technology to education and property and wiped billions of dollars off the market value of some of the country's largest companies. The practice targeted by the MIIT is common. Tencent restricts users from sharing content from ByteDance-owned short video app Douyin on Tencent's instant messaging apps WeChat and QQ. In February, Douyin filed a complaint with a Beijing court saying it constituted monopolistic behavior. Tencent has called those accusations baseless. In other cases, Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall e-commerce marketplaces do not allow Tencent's payment service WeChat Pay to be used as a payment option. Tencent said it supported the MIIT's guidance and would make the necessary changes in phases. Alibaba said it would comply with the MIIT requirements and "looked forward to finding common ground with other platforms."
149300313
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AltMachine writes:
Government researchers in China unveiled their design for a commercial molten salt nuclear reactor that is expected to be the first in the world to not utilize water for cooling. The two-megawatt prototype molten salt reactor, powered by liquid thorium instead of uranium, is due for completion next month and the first tests could begin as soon as September. Molten salt reactors are expected to be safer than traditional uranium nuclear reactors, as thorium cools and solidifies quickly in the open air, meaning that a leak would theoretically result in less radiation contamination for the surrounding environment. The concept of a nuclear reactor powered by liquid salt instead of uranium was first devised in the 1940s. However, early experiments struggled to find a solution for problems including the corrosion and cracking of pipes used to transport the molten salts. As the reactor won't need water it can be deployed in desert regions, allowing operators to utilize otherwise desolate spaces in order to provide energy for large populations. The prototype reactor is built in the desert city of Wuwei, in Gansu province.
149117755
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AltMachine writes:
China conducted a clandestine first test flight of a reusable suborbital vehicle Friday as a part of development of a reusable space transportation system. The vertical takeoff and horizontal landing (VTHL) vehicle launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center Friday and later landed at an airport just over 800 kilometers away at Alxa League in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC) announced. The test follows a September 2020 test flight of a “reusable experimental spacecraft”. The spacecraft orbited for days, releasing a small transmitting payload and later deorbited and landed horizontally. So far, not a single real photo of either plane has been revealed. According to CASC’s China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, the aim was full reusability, moving beyond partial reusability of Falcon 9-like launchers, though several Chinese companies are also developing reusable rockets. While the U.S. X-37B, a rocket-launched spaceplane, has flown several times, Boeing exited the Experimental Spaceplane (XSP) program, also known as the XS-1 program, another VTHL concept.
148568240
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AltMachine writes:
Lawyers fighting the extradition of Huawei's chief financial officer to the United States on Tuesday presented internal emails from British bank HSBC that they said disproved U.S. claims that Huawei misled the bank. Her legal team has extracted internal documents from HSBC, showing at least two senior HSBC leaders were aware of connections between Huawei and its Iranian subsidiary Skycom through a court in Hong Kong, and they hope to refer to them in the case's final hearings scheduled for August. U.S. prosecutors have alleged that Meng misled HSBC about Huawei's business dealings in Iran and may have caused the bank to break U.S. sanctions. Business dealings with Iran was not illegal under Canada laws as the sanction was not a UN resolution and had no legal basis internationally. The only way for the extradition to proceed would be to show Huawei misled HSBC which operates in the U.S. Amid intensifying US-China technology and economic rivary, it is not the first time the U.S. law enforcement fabricating false accusation against Chinese or China-linked persons. Earlier in April, U.S. court trial reveals federal agents falsely accused a UT professor born in China of spying and three Congressmen are asking the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General to “review whether the China Initiative puts untoward pressure on DOJ personnel to engage in racial or ethnic profiling.” Federal agents falsely accused Hu of spying for China based solely on a Google search, testimony revealed. After Hu refused to work as a spy for the U.S. government, agents stalked and harassed him for more than two years, leading to the destruction of his reputation and internationally renowned career.
147041264
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AltMachine writes:
China broke the controlled nuclear fusion record by keeping the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST,) located at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, by maintaining plasma temperature at 120 million Celsius for 101 seconds and 160 million Celsius for 20 seconds, a major step toward the test run of the fusion reactor, beating a previous record of maintaining the plasma temperature at 100 million C for 100 seconds set by South Korean scientists which in turn beat the earlier EAST record at 100 million degrees for shorter time. "The breakthrough is significant progress, and the ultimate goal should be keeping the temperature at a stable level for a long time," Li Miao, director of the physics department of the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, told the Global Times, adding that the next milestone might be to maintain the stability for a week or more.
