Tech Buzz China

I caught up with a friend from China who’s been a startup founder there for over a decade. They’ve been spending a few days in the Valley, and I asked what they thought of things here. They laughed and said, “I see convergence.” Apparently, people in China find it hilarious…

GOODBYE TO BLUE, HELLO TO ORANGE? It appears that the blue colour of Alibaba’s Eleme meal delivery service may eventually disappear from the streets of China. In the past few months, Alibaba has outfitted Taobao Instant Commerce (TIC) couriers with new orange uniforms, helmets,…

Money in China’s AI apps is flowing to content and education. Roughly half of the top 100 are video/image generators or editors. And the fastest in-app revenue climbers? Homework scanners and AI language coaches! Read our report for free: substack.com/@techbuzzchina…

Chinese AI apps have massive global reach, but significantly trail in Annual Recurring Revenue. Startups serve home users, yet often rely on overseas markets for critical cash flow. Read our joint report with Unique Research techbuzzchina.substack.com/p/the-state-of…

I finally wrote up my @techbuzzchina Deep Tech Trip takeaways on substack! It was simply too long to put on X. But here is the TLDR for those of you too busy to read it in full. 6 takeaways in order from most important to least: 1. Deep Infrastructure and the Government as…

A few months ago, rumour had it that Pinduoduo’s grocery delivery platform, Duoduo Maicai, was building warehouses in Shanghai and was expected to launch an instant retail business in August. It would select unbranded products from Duoduo Maicai and the Pinduoduo app to ensure…

This might be the coolest logo I’ve ever seen. It’s the character 通 (tong), which in Chinese means "general" and also "through". But wait, do you also see the letters AGI hidden inside?? Super fitting, since the institute behind it is the Beijing Institute of General Artificial…

Cambricon briefly surpassed Moutai to become China’s most valuable stock. A national AI champion—or the next big bubble? The gap between hype and fundamentals has never been starker. Read the report techbuzzchina.substack.com/p/cambricon-ch…

We tried to get everyone on the @techbuzzchina Deep Tech Trip who wanted to try a Pony.ai robotaxi the chance to do so this morning in Shenzhen which meant I didn’t get to try. So I ordered myself a ride this evening. It’s basically the same experience as Google’s…

Went to the Shenzhen Logistics Expo today which had its first ever autonomous delivery exhibition hall. Neolix is valued at a fraction of SV based startup Nuro ($6Bn) and just surpassed 10K vehicles in service. They were only at 1K last year, 10x growth. $20K & up per truck.…

As fate would have it, finally meeting in person for the first time courtesy of @NIOGlobal no better place than the worlds biggest NIO House inside one the world’s smartest factories to do it!

It was raining hard in Hefei today so the @techbuzzchina Deep Tech Trip group couldn’t take a ride in $EH Ehang’s flying taxi evTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing). The current model (that is approved for test flights of 4-5 minutes for two people) is pretty small (450kg)

Did the much anticipated $NIO F2 factory tour today. Can’t share any photos as we were not allowed to take any, but I wish my late grandpa (who worked in a factory) could see what Chinese factories look like today — he would have really enjoyed it. The workers mostly looked…

The most popular experience today for @techbuzzchina Deep Tech Trip attendees was the 4D home movie theater experience in the newest NIO ET9 electric car. It’s really to show off the suspension. Here’s the demo:

In June, at @TechBuzzChina, we took a deep dive into WeChat’s new gifting function, an example of how Tencent sees e-commerce evolving in the ecosystem of its popular chat app. Last week, we took a closer look at the parts of WeChat’s ecosystem that facilitate the e-commerce…

Quite a few people have asked me what to make of the TikTok divestment announcement. I agree with @ZichenWanghere who emphasized in his Pekinology newsletter that the Chinese readout suggests the framework being discussed is not limited to TikTok, but combines other concerns such…

ALIBABA OPENS ANOTHER ATTACK ON MEITUAN WITH AMAP AND AI Amap (a.k.a. AutoNavi and Gaode) has been my Chinese navigation app of choice for a while now. This Alibaba app is now opening a full attack on Meituan’s review app Dianping, at a time when Meituan is already been pestered…

WECHAT: USING AN ECOSYSTEM TO GROW E-COMMERCE Tencent has never been very successful with e-commerce. At one point, it even sold all its e-commerce business to partner JD. But times have changed ... Since its launch in 2011, the WeChat ecosystem has constantly expanded. It…

In June, I analysed WeChat’s gifting function for @TechBuzzChina. I shared its results so far and expectations for the future. The launch of this function is a sign of Tencent’s renewed interest in e-commerce. Another indication that Tencent is reconsidering the role of…

A couple weeks ago Tech Buzz China's @ruima went viral for saying that in China, power for AI is a "solved problem," and not only in generation but transmission as well. She now dug into a Huawei white paper on AI data centers. linkedin.com/posts/ruima_ai…?