The Tianjin Company Giving Robots a Sense of Touch at a Fraction of the Previous Cost
In a nondescript industrial park in Tianjin’s Hexi district, a factory runs around the clock collecting data that will teach the world’s robots how to touch.
DAILY BRIEF · 10 STORIES
The June 17, 2026 brief
China’s Supreme Court Blocks Infineon from GaN Sales, Sending Domestic Chip Stocks Surging
China’s Supreme People’s Court delivered a landmark ruling on Friday, June 12, that has sent shockwaves through the global compound semiconductor industry: an injunction against German chipmaker Infineon Technologies, ordering it to immediately cease all sales and imports of infringing gallium nitride products in mainland China and pay 10 million yuan ($1.47 million) in damages.…
China’s AI Price War Deepens as Model Capabilities Converge
A price war is tearing through China’s artificial intelligence sector, one that began with token prices dropping to $0.10 per million and has since accelerated further, and the South China Morning Post’s latest analysis makes clear that it is deepening rather than stabilizing.
ACE Robotics’ Kairos World Model Tops Four Global Embodied Intelligence Benchmarks
Shanghai-based ACE Robotics announced on June 15 that its Kairos world model has achieved first-place rankings on four of the most widely recognized global benchmarks for embodied intelligence, according to the company’s press release.
China’s Basketball-Sized Diamond Wafers Could Be Its Trump Card in the AI Chip Race
As the global AI chip race intensifies, the material that may ultimately determine its outcome is not silicon, not gallium nitride, and not the exotic compound semiconductors that have dominated recent headlines, it is diamond.
China Leads the World in AI Deployment but Trails in Public Trust
China is deploying artificial intelligence faster and more broadly than any other country in the world, but it is doing so against a backdrop of public trust that lags behind many of the nations it is outpacing.
Anthropic’s Model Shutdown Hands China’s Open-Source AI a Global Opening
When the US Department of Commerce sent a letter to Anthropic on June 12 requiring the company to obtain an export license before allowing any foreign person to access its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, the immediate effect was dramatic: Anthropic disabled both models for all customers worldwide for approximately 90 minutes while it…
Enflame Clears $888 Million IPO: The Last of China’s Four AI Chip Dragons Goes Public
China’s AI chip industry reached a symbolic milestone on June 16 when Shanghai Enflame Technology received clearance from the Shanghai Stock Exchange review committee for a 6 billion yuan ($888 million ) initial public offering on the STAR Market.
Alibaba Launches Qwen-Robot Suite as Physical AI Becomes the New Battleground
Alibaba has launched the Qwen-Robot Suite, a family of three AI models purpose-built for robotics, marking one of the most significant expansions of the Qwen model family since its debut and signaling that China’s largest cloud company is staking a major claim in the emerging field of physical AI.
DeepSeek Closes $7.4 Billion Round at $50 Billion Valuation, Becoming China’s Most Valuable AI Startup
DeepSeek has officially closed the largest fundraising round in Chinese AI history, raising more than 50 billion yuan, equivalent to over $7.4 billion, at a valuation exceeding $50 billion.