Month: July 2025

China has pulled the wraps off its next-generation high-speed rail technology as the United States revokes federal funding for California’s high-speed rail project. Advertisement China’s latest bullet train, the CR450, is undergoing final performance tests to prepare it for commercial operation trials at 400km/h (250mph), the official Science and Technology Daily reported on Monday. The team surpassed the previous upper speed of 350km/h, at which high aerodynamic resistance and energy consumption levels had for decades been a technological barrier. 01:13 China unveils maglev marvel, redefining the future of high-speed rail…

China has staged a warfare demonstration using a full spectrum of uncrewed systems, underscoring its role as a leading global drone supplier, according to a state media report on Monday. Advertisement The drone and counter-drone exercise at a testing ground in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region simulated the “seizure and control of critical border locations”, state broadcaster CCTV reported. It said numerous domestically made systems were deployed in live operations across six phases of the futuristic battlefield scenario, covering reconnaissance, AI planning, infiltration, aerial attack, elimination and anti-access. Unmanned aerial…

BYD scored the most new electric vehicle (EV) registrations in Hong Kong in the first half of 2025, beating Tesla and BMW, as mainland Chinese carmakers increased their focus on the city to serve as a launch pad for their global ambitions. Advertisement The Shenzhen-based carmaker accounted for 27 per cent, or 4,902, of the 18,356 private EVs that were registered in the first half, data from the city’s Transport Department showed this week. BYD’s bestseller with 3,676 units was the Sealion 07, a pure electric, mid-size, five-seat SUV that…

China’s top anti-spy agency has advised citizens travelling abroad to be cautious while accepting souvenirs that could have surveillance capabilities. Advertisement Items such as backpack charms, key rings, necklaces and earrings might have hidden spy functions, including cameras, listening devices and tracking features, the Ministry of State Security warned on social media on Tuesday. It said the public must understand national security regulations and exercise caution with these “modified travel souvenirs”. It added that overseas spy agencies might push these altered gifts through “forced gifting”. State sector personnel, employees in…

The launch of the Kimi K2 artificial intelligence model by Alibaba Group Holding-backed Moonshot AI has drawn rapid uptake amid praise from industry experts. Advertisement Downloads of Kimi K2, launched on July 11, doubled to 145,000 on Monday from 76,000 on Friday, according to AI and machine-learning developer platform Hugging Face. The large language model (LLM) from the Beijing-based start-up uses a mixture-of-experts (MOE) architecture and boasts 1 trillion total parameters, with 32 billion activated per inference. For comparison, DeepSeek-V3 has 671 billion parameters. “While companies like OpenAI invest hundreds…