China Executive Insights
Tsinghua-spunout humanoid robot startup Wujie Power raises over $200M in angel-stage funding from Sequoia China, Linear Capital, Hillhouse, Baidu Ventures, and SF Express.
Every Wednesday and Friday, TechNode’s Briefing newsletter delivers a roundup of the most important news in China tech, straight to your inbox. Your support helps TechNode continue to provide credible, on-the-ground journalism and industry insights about the Chinese tech industry. Kimi developer Moonshot AI is close to completing a new $2 billion funding round that would value the company at more than $20 billion, according to LatePost. The round is reportedly led by Meituan’s Long-Z Fund, with China Mobile and CPE joining as investors. Moonshot AI had already completed three funding rounds in January and February totaling $1.9 billion. With the new round, the company would have raised more than $3.9 billion in less than six months, making it the most-funded startup among China’s large model companies. [LatePost, in Chinese]
Every Wednesday and Friday, TechNode’s Briefing newsletter delivers a roundup of the most important news in China tech, straight to your inbox. Your support helps TechNode continue to provide credible, on-the-ground journalism and industry insights about the Chinese tech industry. China’s state-backed semiconductor investment vehicle, known as the Big Fund, is in talks to lead DeepSeek’s first external fundraising, which could value the AI company at about $45 billion, according to the Financial Times. Tencent is also among the investors still in discussions, though the final lineup has not been decided. The reported valuation is up sharply from about $20 billion only weeks ago, as investors look to back DeepSeek despite its limited commercial focus. A deal would also mark the first known investment by the Big Fund in a Chinese large language model company. [Financial Times]
Every Wednesday and Friday, TechNode’s Briefing newsletter delivers a roundup of the most important news in China tech, straight to your inbox. Your support helps TechNode continue to provide credible, on-the-ground journalism and industry insights about the Chinese tech industry. Samsung Electronics said Wednesday it will stop selling home appliances in mainland China, marking the company’s full exit from the country’s consumer appliance retail market amid shifting market conditions. The South Korean tech giant said the decision takes effect immediately and applies to all appliance categories, including televisions, monitors, refrigerators and washing machines. Its smartphone business in China will continue operating as usual. The company said customers who have already purchased Samsung appliances will continue to receive after-sales support in accordance with China’s consumer protection laws and national warranty regulations. Samsung was once a major player in China’s electronics market, but in recent years has faced mounting competition from domestic brands that have rapidly gained market share in both smartphones and home appliances. [TechNode reporting]
A Rust-based terminal AI coding agent built for DeepSeek V4 has taken GitHub's trending list by storm, accumulating 8,700 stars in days. Its creator, a patent law student, is now fielding interview requests from around the world.
Every Wednesday and Friday, TechNode’s Briefing newsletter delivers a roundup of the most important news in China tech, straight to your inbox. Your support helps TechNode continue to provide credible, on-the-ground journalism and industry insights about the Chinese tech industry. Apple is reportedly planning to allow users to choose third-party AI models for the first time in its upcoming iOS 27 release, expanding Apple Intelligence capabilities to power core system features such as Siri, writing tools, and image generation, according to Bloomberg. The shift would mark a significant move by Apple away from its traditionally closed ecosystem toward a more open platform strategy. It could also offer a potential way out of current limitations faced by iPhones in China, where AI functionality has lagged due to regulatory and ecosystem constraints. Since Apple introduced Apple Intelligence in 2024, iPhones sold in China have faced significant limitations in accessing AI features. Due to regulatory requirements, these devices are unable to use the full suite of native AI capabilities.
Every Wednesday and Friday, TechNode’s Briefing newsletter delivers a roundup of the most important news in China tech, straight to your inbox. Your support helps TechNode continue to provide credible, on-the-ground journalism and industry insights about the Chinese tech industry. DeepSeek on April 29 began limited testing of a vision mode, with some users gaining access on both its web version and app after updating. The new option appears alongside the existing Fast Mode and Expert Mode, marking DeepSeek’s first move into multimodal capabilities rather than a simple OCR-style text recognition feature. [TechNode reporting]
Every Wednesday and Friday, TechNode’s Briefing newsletter delivers a roundup of the most important news in China tech, straight to your inbox. Your support helps TechNode continue to provide credible, on-the-ground journalism and industry insights about the Chinese tech industry. China Mobile said it will unveil its AI-eSIM product at the 2026 Mobile Cloud Conference, set to take place in Suzhou from May 7 to 9, as the state-owned telecom giant steps up efforts to integrate AI into connected devices. The AI-eSIM integrates what the company describes as an “intelligent brain,” capable of dynamically dispatching cloud-based models in real time. The technology is designed to enable devices to perform autonomous decision-making and deliver near-instant responses. Initial applications are expected to focus on consumer-facing products, including AI-powered toys and smart wearables, according to the company. The product also includes a hardware-level security chip that assigns each device a unique digital identity, a feature China Mobile says could support enhanced security oversight in industrial scenarios such as robotics and drones. [IThome, in Chinese]
Every Wednesday and Friday, TechNode’s Briefing newsletter delivers a roundup of the most important news in China tech, straight to your inbox. Your support helps TechNode continue to provide credible, on-the-ground journalism and industry insights about the Chinese tech industry. ByteDance has begun testing a paid subscription model for its AI app Doubao, according to an update quietly added to the app’s App Store listing, in a move that underscores the growing commercialization of AI tools in China. The company is introducing three premium subscription plans alongside its existing free service: a standard monthly plan priced at 68 yuan ($9.40), an advanced plan at 200 yuan ($27.60), and a professional plan costing 500 yuan ($69.00). The paid features are expected to target high-compute use cases, including PowerPoint generation, data analysis and video production, areas typically associated with higher operational costs and professional demand. ByteDance said the free version of Doubao will remain available for basic, everyday use. In a statement, the company said the subscription plans are still in the testing phase and that full details will be released through official channels ahead of a broader rollout.
Every Wednesday and Friday, TechNode’s Briefing newsletter delivers a roundup of the most important news in China tech, straight to your inbox. Your support helps TechNode continue to provide credible, on-the-ground journalism and industry insights about the Chinese tech industry. Xiaomi is suspending development of its MIX Flip clamshell foldable smartphone, according to Chinese tech blogger Digital Chat Station, in what appears to be a broader strategic shift in the company’s foldable device lineup. The move comes despite the MIX Flip posting relatively solid sales in global markets, the report said. But the clamshell foldable segment remains constrained by a limited market size and persistently high manufacturing costs, making it less competitive on value compared with larger, book-style foldable devices. Several major smartphone makers have recently scaled back or exited the clamshell foldable category, and Xiaomi is now seen as following that trend. The company is instead expected to focus on larger foldable devices. A new flagship model in this category is expected to launch in the third quarter of this year, between August and September. [TechWeb, in Chinese]
The 58-page technical report for DeepSeek V4 has drawn attention after its nearly 300-person research and engineering author list showed 10 contributors marked as having left the company. National Business Daily said at least five core R&D membe…
Shengshu Technology’s Motubrain model ranked first on both the WorldArena and RoboTwin 2.0 benchmarks, demonstrating a unified world-action approach that enables humanoid robots to perform long-horizon tasks across different embodiments.