Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Submission + - BYD U9 Set Fastest Production Car World Record (caranddriver.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: China is known for boasting the world's cheapest EVs, and is now also home to the fastest. Chinese automaker BYD's YangWang U9 Xtreme just blew the whole competition out of the water. The U9 Xtreme just hit a top speed of 308.4 mph (496.32 km/h) on the ATP Papenburg oval track in Germany, making it the fastest car in production, after demolishing the top-speed record for production EVs a few weeks ago. It was once again driven by German racer Marc Basseng, who piloted the hypercar beyond the previous record-holding Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+, which managed 304.8 back in 2019. The U9 Xtreme sports an insane quad-motor powertrain on a 1200-volt system, combining for a total output of over 2959 horsepower. One small caveat that doesn't lessen the impressiveness of the feat is that while the U9 Xtreme does classify as a production model, it barely does. That's because BYD is planning to limit production of the top-speed version of the U9 to no more than 30 units. The Xtreme is a high-performance version of Yangwang U9, BYD's pothole-jumping hypercar, which costs around $233,000 in China.

Submission + - China Launched Stealth Jet from Electromagnetic Catapult Aircraft Carrier (usni.org)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has demonstrated its ability to launch and recover aircraft from its first electromagnetic catapult-equipped aircraft carrier, the CNS Fujian. Official imagery released by the PLAN today confirms that the new J-35 naval stealth fighters, KJ-600 airborne early warning and control aircraft, and J-15T fighter jet are carrying out carrier trials. Ben Lewis, a co-founder of PLATracker, told USNI News that the test was a “significant milestone” for the Chinese military’s carrier program. “Once operational, the PLAN will have the capacity to field fifth-generation stealth carrier aircraft, supported by fixed-wing carrier-based airborne early warning and command aircraft, across the first island chain and Western Pacific Ocean,” Lewis said. Electromagnetic catapults offer several advantages, not least the fact that they can be more finely tuned to very different aircraft types, including ones that are larger and slower (like the KJ-600), or which are smaller and lighter, such as smaller drones. In contrast to the U.S. Navy, which gathered decades of experience with steam-powered catapults, China opted for electromagnetic ones for its first catapult-equipped carrier. It’s worth noting that the U.S. Navy’s USS Gerald R. Ford was the first carrier ever to get an aircraft into the air using what is also referred to as an electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS). However, it has not launched an F-35C so far, making the J-35 the first stealth jet to achieve this feat. Based on earlier predictions, the F-35C may not do the same for some years.

Submission + - China Testing Domestic Advanced Chipmaking Tool, Plan for AI Clusters (ft.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: The Financial Times reported that China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) is testing a deep-ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machine made by Yuliangsheng, a Shanghai-based start-up, said two people with knowledge of the development. The ability to produce advanced DUV machines would represent a big victory in China’s ability to overcome US controls on chip exports, reduce reliance on western technology and increase the production capacity of advanced AI processors. China’s DUV effort has challenges to overcome. While the majority of its components in Yuliangsheng’s machine are made domestically, some parts are sourced from abroad, said those with knowledge of the effort. But they added the company was making efforts to make all parts in the country soon.

In a related development, Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei announced Thursday new computing systems for powering artificial intelligence with its in-house Ascend chips despite heavy American sanctions against the company. Huawei announced it would roll out three new versions of its Ascend chips through the end of 2028, with the aim to “double compute” capabilities with each year’s release, and build AI superpods and superclusters from the new chips. According to Huawei, the 950PR, to be released early 2026, will feature 128GB of its in-house HBM delivering up to 1.6 TB/s of bandwidth, while the 950DT increases those figures to 144GB and 4 TB/s, but Huawei hasn’t disclosed how its in-house HBM is manufactured, what packaging is used, or which foundry is producing the chip itself. That is followed by Ascend 960 and 970, to be released in 2027 and 2028 respectively. Its new Atlas 950 supernode would support 8,192 Ascend 950 chips, and that the Atlas 950 SuperCluster would use more than 500,000 chips. A more advanced Atlas 960 version, slated for launch in 2027, would support 15,488 Ascend 960 chips per node. The full supercluster would have more than 1 million Ascend chips, according to Huawei. In a speech Thursday, Eric Xu, rotating chairman of Huawei, claimed that its forthcoming Atlas 950 supernode would deliver 6.7 times more computing power than Nvidia’s NVL144 system, also planned for launch next year, and the Atlas 950 supercluster would have 1.3 times the computing power of Elon Musk’s xAI Colossus supercomputer. China on Monday announced it was extending a probe into Nvidia over alleged monopolistic practices and ordered local tech giants to stop tests and orders of the Nvidia ("castrated by the US government") H20 and RTX Pro 6000D chips.

Submission + - China Develops Pregnancy Robot (mother.ly)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: China is taking a bold step in reproductive technology: researchers are building the world’s first “pregnancy robot”, a humanoid machine designed to carry a fetus for 10 months using an artificial womb. This innovation could open new paths to parenthood for couples struggling with infertility. Unlike an incubator that supports premature babies, this robot would replicate the entire gestational process from conception to delivery. The team expects a prototype to be ready within a year, priced below 100,000 yuan (around $14,000 USD). Ethical and legal discussions are already underway with officials in Guangdong Province, exploring policy frameworks to guide this unprecedented technology. The news quickly sparked debate on Chinese social media, with some celebrating the "final liberation of women" while others voiced ethical unease.

Submission + - Applied Materials Sued in China Over Alleged Trade Secret Theft (msn.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: Top US chip-equipment supplier Applied Materials Inc. was sued by a rival in China over alleged trade secret theft, a further escalation in the technology war between the world’s two largest economies. Beijing E-Town Semiconductor Technology Co. filed a lawsuit with the Beijing Intellectual Property Court against Applied Materials accusing the later "illegally obtained, used and revealed its core technologies related to the application of plasma source in treating the surface of wafers," according to a company statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Applied Materials earlier hired two employees who were privy to the Beijing company’s proprietary plasma technologies from E-Town’s fully owned US subsidiary, Mattson, and filed a patent application crediting the duo as inventors with the National Intellectual Property Administration in China. “The patent application violated the rules of China’s Anti-Unfair Competition Law, and it infringes on trade secrets, and has caused significant damage to the plaintiff’s intellectual property and economic interests,” E-Town said in the filing, adding that Applied Materials is also suspected of marketing and selling the technologies involved in the case to Chinese customers. E-Town is asking the court to demand that Applied Materials stop using its trade secrets and destroy related materials. It’s also seeking about 100 million yuan ($13.9 million) in recompense for damage.

Submission + - Japanese Company Staff Implicated in Alleged Theft of Key TSMC Technology (cnn.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: Taiwanese authorities have detained three current and former employees of the world’s largest chip manufacturer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), for allegedly stealing trade secrets and took them to Japanese company Tokyo Electrons, prosecutors said Tuesday. Nikkei Asia first reported on Tuesday that TSMC had fired staffers suspected of illegally obtaining business secrets related to the manufacturing technology for the company’s 2-nanometer chip, the most advanced processor in the semiconductor industry that is expected to go into mass production this year. Taiwanese local media reported that a former TSMC employee now works at top chip manufacturing equipment supplier Tokyo Electron Ltd., and that the Japanese firm’s Taiwan office was raided by investigators. On Thursday, Tokyo Electron confirmed it had dismissed an employee of its Taiwan subsidiary who was involved in the case, and said the company was cooperating with authorities. “As of now, based upon the findings of our internal investigation we have not confirmed any evidence of the respective confidential information shared to any third parties,” it said in a statement.

Submission + - China Reveals Top Line AI System and Model at WAIC (reuters.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: China's Huawei Technologies showed off an AI computing system on Saturday that can rival Nvidia's most advanced offering, even though the company faces U.S. export restrictions. The CloudMatrix 384 system made its first public debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), a three-day event in Shanghai where companies showcase their latest AI innovations, drawing a large crowd to the company's booth. The CloudMatrix 384 incorporates 384 of Huawei's latest 910C chips, optically connected through an all-to-all topology, and outperforms Nvidia's GB200 NVL72 on some metrics, which uses 72 B200 chips, according to SemiAnalysis. A full CloudMatrix system can now deliver 300 PFLOPs of dense BF16 compute, almost double that of the GB200 NVL72. With more than 3.6x aggregate memory capacity and 2.1x more memory bandwidth, Huawei and China now have AI system capabilities that can beat Nvidia’s according to a report by SemiAnalysis. The trade-off is that it takes 4.1x the power of a GB200 NVL72, with 2.5x worse power per FLOP, 1.9x worse power per TB/s memory bandwidth, and 1.2x worse power per TB HBM memory capacity, but SemiAnalysis noted that China has no power constraints only chip constraints. Nvidia had announced DGX H100 NVL256 “Ranger” Platform [with 256 GPUs], but decided to not bring it to production due to it being prohibitively expensive, power hungry, and unreliable due to all the optical transceivers required and the two tiers of network. The CloudMatrix Pod requires an incredible 6,912 400G LPO transceivers for networking, the vast majority of which are for the scaleup network.

Also at this event, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba released a new flagship open-source reasoning model Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 which has already topped key industry benchmarks, outperforming powerful proprietary systems from rivals like Google and OpenAI. On the AIME25 benchmark, a test designed to evaluate sophisticated, multi-step problem-solving skills, Qwen3-Thinking-2507 achieved a remarkable score of 92.3. This places it ahead of some of the most powerful proprietary models, notably surpassing Google’s Gemini-2.5 Pro, while Qwen3-Thinking secured a top score of 74.1 at LiveCodeBench, comfortably ahead of both Gemini-2.5 Pro and OpenAI’s o4-mini, demonstrating its practical utility for developers and engineering teams.

Submission + - China's Communist Party Tops 100 Million Members (wsj.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: China’s Communist Party had 100.27 million members by the end of 2024, an increase of about 1 per cent from the previous year, according to official data released ahead of the party’s 104th anniversary. However, the rate of membership growth has continued to slow, with one insider attributing this to stricter screening by the Central Organisation Department (COD), the party’s top personnel office. The more stringent screening has resulted in a longer waiting list as applications to join the party continue to grow, since membership is still widely regarded as a prerequisite for a meaningful political career. By the end of 2024, there were 21.42 million applicants waiting in line, an increase of 440,000 applicants over 2023, according to the COD data. China’s ruling party continues to be the world’s No 2 political party by membership strength, after India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party which claimed to have 140 million members.

Submission + - China Conducted Test Flight of Kerosene-based Hypersonic Vehicle (scmp.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: SCMP reported that, in a groundbreaking demonstration of technological prowess, China's Feitian 2 hypersonic vehicle successfully completed its test flight, showcasing advanced capabilities in seamless mode transitions and fuel efficiency, marking a significant leap forward in aerospace engineering. China's Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) said in a statement that the test represented the first successful acquisition of real-flight data for a rocket-based combined cycle (RBCC) engine using a kerosene-hydrogen peroxide propellant, proving key capabilities, including variable-geometry intake operation, thrust-varying acceleration and autonomous flight with variable angle of attack. The RBCC engine represents a revolutionary concept, integrating the benefits of traditional rocket engines and air-breathing ramjets within a single system. Its core objective is to maximize the use of atmospheric oxygen as the oxidizer during atmospheric flight, drastically reducing the oxidizer weight the vehicle must carry, thereby significantly boosting the payload capacity and fuel efficiency. Although it is less efficient at converting propellant to thrust than liquid hydrogen, the mixture of kerosene-hydrogen peroxide eliminates the need for complex cryogenic systems, allowing pre-fuelling and long-term standby readiness. The successful demonstration of RBCC engine capabilities and autonomous flight systems suggests that hypersonic vehicles could soon become a reality for both military and civilian applications. Moreover, the test evaluated the vehicle’s autonomous flight capabilities, enabling it to adjust its angles of attack based on mission parameters and environmental conditions. The ability to smoothly transition between flight modes and adapt to environmental conditions opens new possibilities for rapid global travel and advanced defense systems. Notably, NPU is subject to US sanctions and requires specific US Commerce Department approval to buy sensitive US-made research equipment and components, while Chinese authorities publicly accused the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) carrying out extensive cyberattacks against the university.

Comment Re:China surpassing the USA again? (Score 1) 21

by hackingbear (#65448207) Attached to: Tiny Human Hearts Grown in Pig Embryos For the First Time

But they also had a serious brain drain during the cultural revolution by wiping out all the teachers.

Cultural revolution was ended 49 years ago and while some small number of teachers were killed most survived, definitely not "wiped out". University entrance exam was resumed in 1978 with no shortage or students or teachers or professors to teach the students.

These hearts come from pigs that have been gene editing to remove certain pig traits that a human body would identify and reject the organ

Can;t you not tell the differences between these prior research and "reprogrammed human stem cells to survive in pigs and introduced them into pig embryos with two heart development genes knocked out" technique applied in this new research?

So don't believe the hyperbole in science papers.

And don't believe your hyperbole against China.

Submission + - US Seen Trading Chips For Chinese Rare Earths (investors.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: U.S.-China trade talks are continuing in London today with the focus on Beijing's export restrictions of rare earth magnets that threaten to hit the brakes on manufacturing of autos, high-tech and defense gear. U.S. President Trump authorized Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and fellow U.S. negotiators to walk back recent U.S. moves to suspend exports of jet engines, chip-design software and ethane. However, some on Wall Street think Beijing is in position to demand a much broader reversal of chip export controls. It's "unrealistic," wrote Christopher Wood, global head of equity strategy at Jefferies, "for Washington to assume that China is going to ease up controls on rare earths if the U.S. does not do the same as regards exports of U.S. tech products." China views U.S. export controls, some of which were dated as far back as 1996, on chips and chip equipment "as the equivalent of a declaration of economic war against China, since it amounts to a deliberate effort to prevent the upgrading of the mainland economy." The S&P 500 is edging back toward its record high as markets see little doubt that President Trump will get a deal done, given the disastrous consequences for the economy if he doesn't. Earlier this month, several carmakers, both traditional and electric, are considering moving part of the manufacturing process to China in order to secure supplies of rare earth magnets which are used by the dozen in every vehicle. This could include building electric motors in Chinese factories or shipping American-made motors to China to have the magnets installed. "U.S. efforts to diversify rare earth supply may gather pace, but building capacity outside China will take years and remains both costly and difficult to execute," the UBS strategist wrote.

Submission + - Automakers Worry China's Tariff Response will STOP All US Car Production Soon (dailymail.co.uk)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: In response to tariff imposed by the Trump administration to bring jobs back to the U.S., China has stopped nearly all trade on rare earth magnets in addition to counter tariff. Automakers warn that the blockade could stop all US car production in days. "Without reliable access to these elements and magnets, automotive suppliers will be unable to produce critical automotive components," a letter sent in May from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation to President Trump said. "In severe cases, this could include the need for reduced production volumes or even a shutdown of vehicle assembly lines." The materials, which were last built in the US at scale in the late 1990s, are scattered throughout vehicles. A modern, power-adjusting seat can use as many as 12 individual magnets. China has recently cracked down on rare earth smuggling by introducing a nation-wide tracking system and, imitating the U.S. secondary sanctions, China demands other countries from re-exporting Chinese rare earth products to the U.S. President Trump recently lashed out against Chinese officials for exploiting these gaps in American production. "China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. China hit back on Monday, accusing the US of violating and undermining the agreements reached in Geneva in May. China’s commerce ministry said on Monday: “The US has successively introduced a number of discriminatory restrictive measures against China, including issuing export control guidelines for AI chips, stopping the sale of chip design [EDA] software to China, and announcing the revocation of Chinese student visas.” In addition to the long-standing blockading of advanced semiconductors like nVidia GPUs and semiconductor equipment even if made by European company ASML since as far back as 1996 Wassena Agreement, the U.S. paused sales of commercial jet engine Leap-1C to Chinese plane maker Comac last week, threatening to stop the production of China's C919 airliner. While in theory possible, starting rare earth mining and refining can take 10 to 15 years for a country. In light of the urgency, several carmakers, both traditional and electric, are considering moving part of the manufacturing process to China. This could include building electric motors in Chinese factories or shipping American-made motors to China to have the magnets installed.

Submission + - Chinese EV Battery Maker Launched This Year's Largest IPO, Barring Americans (marketwatch.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: Chinese company Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL), the world’s largest maker of electric batteries and is on a U.S. Defense Department list of Chinese companies with military ties, raised $4.6 billion in the top initial public offering of the year. The offering in Hong Kong was executed under what’s called Regulation S. That means it forbids most U.S. citizens or entities from participating in the IPO. U.S. institutional investors with offshore accounts, however, could participate. CATL has the largest market share, ahead of BYD and LG Energy Solution as the supplier to companies including Tesla and Volkswagen. Amid the on-going Sino-US trade war and geopolitical rivalry, US politicians urge SEC to delist Alibaba and Chinese companies from American stock exchanges. "These entities benefit from American investor capital while advancing the strategic objectives of the Chinese Communist party... supporting military modernisation and gross human rights violations," they said in the letter to the SEC.

Submission + - China Created 10,000× Faster, 400 Picosecond Flash Memory (interestingengineering.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: A research team at Fudan University in Shanghai, China has built the fastest semiconductor storage device ever reported, a nonvolatile flash memory dubbed “PoX” that programs a single bit in 400 picoseconds (0.0000000004 s) — roughly 25 billion operations per second. Conventional static and dynamic RAM (SRAM, DRAM) write data in 1–10 nanoseconds but lose everything when power is cut while current flash chips typically need micro to milliseconds per write — far too slow for modern AI accelerators that shunt terabytes of parameters in real time. The Fudan group, led by Prof. Zhou Peng at the State Key Laboratory of Integrated Chips and Systems, reengineered flash physics by replacing silicon channels with two dimensional Dirac graphene and exploiting its ballistic charge transport. Combining ultralow energy with picosecond write speeds could eliminate separate highspeed SRAM caches and remove the longstanding memory bottleneck in AI inference and training hardware, where data shuttling, not arithmetic, now dominates power budgets. The team, which is now scaling the cell architecture and pursuing arraylevel demonstrations, did not disclose endurance figures or fabrication yield, but the graphene channel suggests compatibility with existing 2Dmaterial processes that global fabs are already exploring. The result is published in Nature.

Submission + - DJI and Other Chinese Companies Move to Eliminate Overtime (chosun.com) 1

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: Chinese corporations have begun to improve the long working hours culture represented by the so-called "996" (working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., 6 days a week). As the Chinese government asks them to address inefficient "internal competition," corporations that already needed management efficiency have started to eliminate overtime. DJI, the world's largest drone maker, has been implementing a "no overtime" policy since the 27th of last month. Accordingly, employees must leave the office after 9 p.m. [without requiring workrs starting at 9 a.m.] The company also eliminated transportation expenses paid for overtime and closed down facilities such as the gym, swimming pool, and badminton court, while also reducing team expenses, in order to foster an early leaving environment. Chinese appliance manufacturer Midea began enforcing a mandatory leaving policy at 6:20 p.m. for office workers. Midea has also initiated the simplification of work methods this year, implementing a "strict prohibition on meetings and formal overtime after hours," and has taken a step further with this policy. Another appliance manufacturer, Haier, mandated two days of rest on weekends starting last month and decided to allow a maximum of 3 hours of overtime during the week. The 996 practice is particularly prominent in large corporations and the internet industry. In 2021, Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, one of China's largest e-commerce corporations, stated, "Being able to work 996 is a great blessing" and asked, "If you don't do 996 when you're young, when will you?" China's legislature, the National People's Congress, issued, for the first time, a call to comprehensively [reduce] "internal competition" broadly including chaotic expansion of production capacity, price wars, and zero-sum games. However, reactions from workers regarding these measures by corporations are mixed with some complaint these measures amount to wage cut as overtime pay disappears as well.

Slashdot Top Deals

"Can you program?" "Well, I'm literate, if that's what you mean!"

Close