Month: March 2026

As global energy supplies are put under strain by Iranian disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, state-owned Chinese oil giant PetroChina has said its overall operations remain stable because most of its imports do not pass through the strait. However, the company’s investment operations in the Middle East had been “impacted to varying degrees”, as crude oil and natural gas imported through the strait accounted for about 10 per cent of its total operating volume, PetroChina chairman Dai Houliang said at its annual results conference in Hong Kong…

China’s southern tech hub Shenzhen began operations of the country’s first 10,000-card intelligent computing cluster, built with advanced chips made by Huawei Technologies, in the latest sign of how the country is deepening its push for home-grown computing capabilities. Featuring a computing capacity of 11,000 petaflops, the new cluster, activated last week, is the country’s first 10,000-card intelligent computing cluster built with Huawei’s Ascend 910C AI chips, according to Shenzhen Special Zone Daily, the city’s official newspaper. Combined with the 3,000-petaflop cluster activated last year, which had already been fully…

Apple’s accidental roll-out on Tuesday of its highly anticipated Apple Intelligence feature in mainland China – which has yet to receive regulatory approval – before swiftly pulling it could raise the ire of regulators and expose the US tech giant to potential penalties, an industry expert warned. Even though the company immediately pulled the release, the fact that Apple “pushed the feature to Chinese users before completing security evaluation and algorithm filing could be deemed as providing service without fulfilling legal compliance obligations, subjecting it to the risk of administrative…

China is ramping up efforts to deeply integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into its shipping industry by 2027, targeting breakthroughs in core technologies to build a smart maritime system as global competition intensifies. A new action plan by the Ministry of Transport and three other government bodies outlined a road map that includes creating at least three comprehensive pilot zones, launching more than five trial routes, developing over 10 replicable smart-shipping use cases and deploying more than 100 smart vessels by that year. By 2030, Beijing aims to “fully master key…

China’s military mouthpiece accused Japan of “dangerously expanding” its defence industry – in capacity, technology and international engagement – and said it had “crossed the red line”. In a rare full-page report on Monday, PLA Daily claimed Japan possessed an “astonishing” stockpile of nuclear materials and that it had the technology to produce nuclear weapons. It said 44.4 tonnes of plutonium had already been separated by the end of 2024 – enough to make about 5,500 nuclear warheads. Advertisement The report warned that once Japan had fully broken free from…

European governments breathed a sigh of relief in October when the US and China sealed a fragile trade truce that paused more sweeping Chinese rare earth restrictions and papered over a Sino-Dutch row over chipmaker Nexperia. Now, however, the European Union is being urged to come up with a battle plan should the ceasefire fail or expire. A spike in superpower tensions could expose the EU to Chinese export controls, potentially pulverising its military support for Ukraine, its own efforts to rearm, as well as its broad industrial upgrade, according…

Kenya has revived construction on its multibillion-dollar Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) extension that stalled more than six years ago, replacing heavy sovereign debt with innovative financing after renegotiating its loans with China. Kenyan President William Ruto earlier this month broke ground on the 264km (164-mile) Naivasha–Kisumu section in Narok in southwest Kenya, then travelled to Kisumu where he and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni launched the 107km segment to Malaba on the border with Uganda. Advertisement The modern infrastructure replaces the “Lunatic Express”, the British-built metre-gauge railway in service since 1901.…