Two Largest Coal Consumers Not Going Green

China and India’s growing economies will continue to fuel demand for coal even as they set ambitious renewable energy targets, according to experts.

While China is the world’s largest energy consumer, India is ranked third globally, and both countries are the top consumers of coal as they strive to fuel economic growth.


China’s share of global electricity consumption, 60% of which is generated by coal, is set to jump to one-third by 2025, compared with a quarter in 2015, according to projections by energy watchdog International Energy Agency.         READ MORE...

72 Qubit Quantum Computer

The third-generation superconducting quantum computer, “Origin Wukong,” was launched on January 6 at Origin Quantum Computing Technology in Hefei, according to Chinese-based media outlet, The Global Times, as reported by the Pakistan Today.

According to the news outlets, the “Origin Wukong” is powered by a 72-qubit superconducting quantum chip, known as the “Wukong chip.” This development marks a new milestone in China’s quantum computing journey as it’s the most advanced programmable and deliverable superconducting quantum computer in China, as per a joint statement from the Anhui Quantum Computing Engineering Research Center and the Anhui Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Computing Chips, shared with the Global Times.

Superconducting quantum computers, such as the “Origin Wukong,” rely on a approach being investigated by several other quantum computer makers, including IBM and Google quantum devices.  READ MORE...

Nuclear Energy Competition with Russia and China

As the USA and many world leaders continue the pursuit of “unreliable electricity”, from wind turbines and solar panels, that can only generate intermittent electricity at best from available breezes and sunshine, Russia, China, France, and Finland have emerged as the leaders in nuclear power generation to achieve continuous uninterruptible, affordable, and zero emission electricity.

According to recent reports, Russia and China are currently leading the world in nuclear electricity generation which also happens to be continuous uninterruptable zero-emissions electricity.

About 60 nuclear power reactors are currently being constructed in 15 countries, notably China, India, and Russia. Together, China and Russia account for 70 percent of new nuclear plants.

The United States, which once led the way in nuclear energy, now lags with only a handful of new reactors under construction. The dominance of Russia and China is likely to continue for the foreseeable future as they invest heavily in new technology and expand their nuclear power programs.

Many of the next generation nuclear plants will require a new form of enriched uranium – called High-Assay, Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU). Russia is currently the only country to produce HALEU which may not be comfortable for America’s national security.    READ MORE...

Russia and China successfully test quantum communication over satellite

Following recent demos of quantum communication using undersea fiber optics, scientists from Russia and China have successfully demonstrated quantum communication over satellite, using China's quantum satellite (dubbed "Mozi"), as the two countries lay the groundwork for advanced encrypted communication networks that are safe from prying Western eyes — possibly for BRICS-aligned countries. The test was conducted using the satellite from a ground station close to Moscow, Russia, to another station based near Urumqi, China, over 3,800 kilometers, according to the South China Morning Post.  READ MORE...

Chinese Rush for Intelligentized Warfare Alarms Pentagon

The U.S. Department of Defense has warned that China’s artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives have seen heavy integration with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), raising concerns of a possible AI arms race.

"The size, scope and sophistication of Chinese military modernization programs is breathtaking," James Anderson, who served as the deputy undersecretary of defense during the Trump administration, told Fox News Digital. "The report makes clear that Beijing remains hellbent on developing a world-class military force, despite its recent economic slowdown."

The annual Pentagon report on the Military and Security Developments involving the People’s Republic of China argues in the preface that China remains "the" pacing challenge for the Department of Defense as Beijing seeks "national rejuvenation" by 2049 – the centenary anniversary for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).  READ MORE...

China Is Second Biggest Trade Currency

SHANGHAI/SINGAPORE, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Global companies are making a beeline for China's debt markets, issuing record amounts of yuan-denominated bonds and borrowing heavily from mainland banks, capitalizing on rock-bottom yuan interest rates as funding costs elsewhere jump.

Companies and banks are raising record amounts of cash through yuan bonds issued in mainland China and in Hong Kong, known as panda and dim sum bonds, respectively.   READ MORE...

Chinese Robot Producing Oxygen from Water

Researchers in China have developed a robot chemist powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that might be able to extract oxygen from water on Mars. The robot uses materials found on the red planet to produce catalysts that break down water, releasing oxygen. 

The idea could complement existing oxygen-generating technologies or lead to the development of other catalysts able to synthesize useful resources on Mars.

“If you think about the challenge of going to Mars, you have to work with local materials,” says Andy Cooper, a chemist at the University of Liverpool, UK. “So I can see the logic behind it.”   READ MORE...

China's Vision to Reshape the WORLD

Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world.

Xi Jinping has a plan for how the world should work, and one year into his norm-shattering third term as Chinese leader, he’s escalating his push to challenge America’s global leadership — and put his vision front and center.

That bid was in the spotlight like never before last month in Beijing, when Xi, flanked by Russian President Vladimir Putin, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, and some two dozen top dignitaries from around the world, hailed China as the only country capable of navigating the challenges of the 21st century.  READ MORE...

China to Build Humanoid Robots by 2025

The country aims to produce its first humanoid robots by 2025, according to a blueprint laid out by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The government will nurture more young companies focused on the field, set industry standards, develop talent and deepen international cooperation.

Shares of Chinese robotics companies surged after the policy guidance, which adds another dimension to a technological race between the world’s two biggest economies in chips and hardware. US companies such as Tesla Inc. and Boston Dynamics have so far enjoyed an edge in the technology.  READ MORE...

Chinese Investors DUMP US Stocks

BRICS member China is pulling every trick up its sleeve to stall the growth of the US dollar and stocks. China is dumping both US treasuries and equities to keep the Yuan from ending at a new low against the US dollar. In August alone, China sold $21.2 billion worth of US treasuries and stocks to stop the rising dollar. The BRICS alliance combinedly indulged in a $123 billion worth of sell-off in US government bonds and treasuries this year. China is the flag-bearer for BRICS in its quest to free the world from the US dollar supremacy.

World's Largest Underwater Telescope in China

Scientists in China are building the world's largest "ghost particle" detector 11,500 feet (3,500 meters) beneath the surface of the ocean.

The Tropical Deep-sea Neutrino Telescope (TRIDENT) — called Hai ling or "Ocean Bell" in Chinese — will be anchored to the seabed of the Western Pacific Ocean. Upon completion in 2030, it will scan for rare flashes of light made by elusive particles as they briefly become tangible in the ocean depths.

Every second, about 100 billion ghost particles, called neutrinos, pass through each square centimeter of your body. And yet, true to their spooky nickname, neutrinos' nonexistent electrical charge and almost-zero mass mean they barely interact with other types of matter.

But by slowing neutrinos down, physicists can trace some of the particles' origins billions of light-years away to ancient, cataclysmic stellar explosions and galactic collisions.

That's where the ocean bell comes in.

"Using Earth as a shield, TRIDENT will detect neutrinos penetrating from the opposite side of the planet," Xu Donglian, the project's chief scientist, told journalists at a news conference Oct. 10. "As TRIDENT is near the equator, it can receive neutrinos coming from all directions with the rotation of the Earth, enabling all-sky observation without any blind spots."

Neutrinos are everywhere — they are second only to photons as the most abundant subatomic particles in the universe and are produced in the nuclear fire of stars, in enormous supernova explosions, in cosmic rays and radioactive decay, and in particle accelerators and nuclear reactors on Earth..

Despite their ubiquity, their minimal interactions with other matter make neutrinos incredibly difficult to detect. They were first discovered zipping out of a nuclear reactor in 1956, and many neutrino-detection experiments have spotted the steady bombardment of the particles sent to us from the sun; but this cascade masks rarer neutrinos produced when cosmic rays, whose sources remain mysterious, strike Earth's atmosphere.  READ MORE...

Reshaping The Global Order

At the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg on August 24, 2023, the bloc’s five members — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — announced the invitation of six new countries — Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Effective January 1, 2024, BRICS countries will represent almost half the world’s population.

While BRICS has struggled to make concrete achievements, the momentum may now be shifting. This expansion would have the BRICS overtake the G7 in total gross domestic product, with BRICS economies growing at higher demographic and economic rates than G7 members.

The BRICS expansion could help reduce tensions among the BRICS’s Middle Eastern countries, but could also provoke the United States and NATO, given the admission of Iran and the current membership of Russia and China.

A growing number of countries have expressed interest in joining the BRICS group. Yet there are internal disagreements about how the group should move forward. China and Russia have pushed for a quick expansion of BRICS to strengthen their geopolitical influence, while India has expressed concern about admitting many new members too quickly.

India’s concern has much to do with its historic, bitter border disputes with China, as well as the current strength of India’s bilateral relationship with the United States. India’s contribution in keeping BRICS from becoming outwardly anti-Western only strengthens the country’s geopolitical importance for the United States – US President Joe Biden quite literally pulled out the red carpet for India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his June 2023 visit to the White House.  READ MORE...

CERN's New Particle Collider

Preparations for a massive new particle smasher near Geneva are picking up speed. But the European-led project, which hopes to answer some of the biggest questions in physics, faces many obstacles, including competition from China.

In 2012 scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) achieved a key breakthrough when they detected the elusive Higgs boson, an elementary particle that gives mass to all the others. This followed decades of work using accelerators such as the famed Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s most powerful particle collider located north of Geneva.

Yet many fundamental questions about the universe remain unanswered: What constitutes dark matter? Why is our universe filled with matter and not antimatter? Or why do the masses of elementary particles differ so much?

The search for answers to these and other big physics questions requires another “leap to higher energies and intensities”, says CERN. The organisation wants to build a more powerful and precise successor to the LHC, which was conceived in the early 1980s and will complete its mission in 2040.

“We build these machines to explore the nature of the universe. It’s about going out into the unknown and exploring further,” says Mike Lamont, CERN’s director of accelerators and technology.

And so, following requests by the global physics community, plans for the so-called Future Circular Collider (FCC) have been taking shape over the past ten years.  READ MORE...

China Doubles Size of its Space Station

In a matter of less than two years, China assembled three modules of its space station dubbed Tiangong, an orbital habitat that can accommodate a crew of three astronauts.

And while it's still significantly smaller than the International Space Station — which took well over a decade to complete — that could soon change.


China is now planning to expand the station with an additional three modules, Reuters reports, offering the country and its international partners an important alternative to the ISS, which is set to be retired by the end of the decade.


Even with the additional three modules, Tiangong will still be only about 40 percent of the mass of the ISS, per the report — but a growing space for research in orbit is still arguably a lot better than not having one at all.

Heavenly Palace
Space contractor the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) announced this week that the station's lifespan will also be 15 — not the previously announced ten — years, according to Reuters, meaning that it'll outlive the ISS by several years if things go according to plan.  READ MORE...

Tesla's Bot Video

In the wake of Agility Robotics announcing their intention to scale production to 10,000 bipedal humanoid robots every year, Fourier Intelligence, a technology-driven company specializing in exoskeleton and rehabilitation robots, released a new video showcasing its GR-1 humanoid robot and production facilities.

Set in Salem, Oregon, “RoboFab”, Agility Robotics’ 70,000-square-foot robot factory is slated to open later this year and manufacture the company’s bipedal robot Digit.

“When you’re building new technology to improve society, the most important milestone is when you’re able to mass produce that technology at a scale where it can have a real, widespread impact,” Agility Robotics’ co-founder and CEO Damion Shelton said.

With recent developments in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics engineering, the prospects for a human-esque robot capable of performing the actions of real people have been better than ever before.

Fourier Intelligence’s GR-1— first unveiled at the 2023 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai— is equipped to assist patients from their beds to wheelchairs and pick up objects, boosted by the ability to carry loads of up to 110lb (50kg).

The newly released video flaunts Fourier Intelligence’s production prowess, custom-built actuators, and body parts that are being 3D printed.

And it isn't just Fourier Intelligence seemingly interested in reminding the public of their existence.

Optimus not-at-its-prime.
Tesla issued an update on its take on a humanoid robot, Optimus, with a video that eerily looks CGI-like.

What seemed like a half-baked idea from Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk when first announced was not helped by an underwhelming demo organized by the company at Tesla AI Day last year.

Optimus, barely able to walk about and wave wearily at the crowds, has since gained strength and credibility, reported Electrek.

The new video released by Tesla depicts the bot autonomously sorting objects by color amidst human interruption and self-calibrating its arms and legs.

The humanoid leverages vision and joint position encoders to locate its limbs in space, which allows for precise calibration and efficient learning of tasks. Optimus now trains using a neural network that runs entirely on-board.

The company claims Optimus' capabilities to include learning new tasks such as un-sorting and ended the video with the bot flaunting its dexterity. “Time to stretch after a long day of work,” the company captioned.   READ MORE...

High Speed Train

On a recent test run, China’s high-speed maglev train, a technological masterpiece, clocked an astonishing speed of 281 miles per hour. (CREDIT: Creative Commons)




China, a nation long-famed for its groundbreaking technological feats, is once again in the limelight. This time, it’s not a skyscraper, a bridge, or a quantum computer, but a train. Not just any train, but the fastest train in the world.


On a recent test run, China’s high-speed maglev train, a technological masterpiece, clocked an astonishing speed of 281 miles per hour. This blistering pace not only sets the maglev as the fastest train globally, but it also begins to challenge the domain of commercial air travel.


As it stands, commercial flights maintain a cruising speed ranging between 545 mph and 574 mph. Yet, once fully developed and optimized, the engineers behind this incredible feat believe the maglev could soar to speeds of up to 621 mph.


The secret behind this prowess? A term that seems to have sprung from science fiction: "magnetic levitation" or maglev. The maglev system allows the train to almost float, as if by magic, minimizing the friction traditionally experienced with standard train tracks.


But this isn’t magic—it’s science. The heart of this system lies in its superconducting magnets, kept at bone-chilling temperatures to augment their magnetic strength. These magnets, stationed on the train, engage with metallic components on the walls of a specially designed low-vacuum pipeline.


The resultant interaction creates both levitation and propulsion, meaning the train rides on a cushion of air rather than traditional tracks. The outcome is not just heightened speed but also a reduction in noise pollution.  READ MORE...

Wanting to Join BRICS

WHAT IS BRICS?

The acronym BRIC, which did not initially include South Africa, was coined in 2001 by then Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O'Neill in a research paper that underlined the growth potential of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

The bloc was founded as an informal club in 2009 to provide a platform for its members to challenge a world order dominated by the United States and its Western allies.

Its creation was initiated by Russia.

The group is not a formal multilateral organisation like the United Nations, World Bank or the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

The heads of state and government of the member nations convene annually with each nation taking up a one-year rotating chairmanship of the group.

WHO ARE THE MEMBERS?

Brazil, Russia, India and China are the founding members.

South Africa, the smallest member in terms of economic clout and population, was the first beneficiary of an expansion of the bloc in 2010 when the grouping became known as BRICS.

Together the countries account for more than 40% of the world population and a quarter of the global economy.

Apart from geopolitics, the group's focus includes economic cooperation and increasing multilateral trade and development.

The bloc operates by consensus. All the BRICS countries are part of the Group of 20 (G20) of major economies.

WHICH NATIONS WANT TO JOIN BRICS AND WHY?
Over 40 countries, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Algeria, Bolivia, Indonesia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Comoros, Gabon, and Kazakhstan have expressed interest in joining the forum, according to 2023 summit chair South Africa.

They view BRICS as an alternative to global bodies viewed as dominated by the traditional Western powers and hope membership will unlock benefits including development finance, and increased trade and investment.

Dissatisfaction with the global order among developing nations was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic when life-saving vaccines were hoarded by the rich countries.

Iran, home to around a quarter of the Middle East's oil reserves, has said it hopes the mechanism for new membership would be decided "at the earliest."

Oil heavyweight Saudi Arabia was among more than a dozen countries that participated in "Friends of BRICS" talks in Cape Town in June. It has received backing from Russia and Brazil to join the BRICS.

Argentina said in July 2022 it had received China's formal support in its bid to join the group.  READ MORE...

Chinese Breakthrough in Laser Weaponry Technology

High-energy laser weapons can now operate ‘infinitely’, thanks to a new cooling system that completely eliminates the build-up of waste heat

The technology could significantly change the face of battle by extending engagement times, and increasing range and damage, researchers say

Chinese military scientists have announced a major breakthrough in laser weapon technology, claiming they have developed a new cooling system that allows high-energy lasers to operate “infinitely” without any build-up of waste heat.

According to scientists at the National University of Defence Technology, in Changsha, Hunan province, the new cooling system completely eliminates the harmful heat that is generated during the operation of high-energy lasers. The issue has been a major technical challenge for laser weapon development.

With the new technology, weapons can now generate laser beams for as long as they want, without any interruption or degradation in performance.

“This is a huge breakthrough in improving the performance of high-energy laser systems,” said the team led by laser weapon scientist Yuan Shengfu in a paper published on August 4 in Acta Optica Sinica, a Chinese-language peer-reviewed journal.

“High-quality beams can be produced not only in the first second, but also maintained indefinitely,” they said.

The new cooling system uses advanced structures and optimised gas flow to remove heat from inside the laser weapon, while minimising turbulence and vibration and improving mirror cleanliness.

It has the potential to significantly change the face of battle by extending engagement times, increasing range and damage, and reducing logistics and costs, according to the researchers.   READ MORE...

China's EVs Going Global

If you bought an electric vehicle in the UK this year, there’s a good chance it was an MG4. The fully electric hatchback, which launched in 2022, sold 5,200 units in the first three months of this year, the second-best selling EV behind Tesla’s Model Y.


With prices starting at about £27,000, it is also substantially cheaper than the Tesla at £45,000. And while MG is one of Britain’s most famous car brands – with a century of carmaking in Birmingham until MG Rover’s 2005 collapse – the secret to its newfound success comes from China. Since 2007, the company has been owned, and the cars made, by SAIC, China’s largest carmaker.


In the past few years, China has been churning out EVs of a quality and price that is making western marques nervous. More than a quarter of new cars sold in China last year were EVs or hybrids, compared with 13% globally. And of the 850,000 electric passenger cars imported to Europe in 2022, more than half came from China.

Xi Jinping, China’s president, has pledged to take the country to net zero emissions by 2060. In the EU, the target is 2050. For both, decarbonising the streets with EVs will be crucial, and China is racing ahead. By 2025, 13% of China’s fleet is predicted to be fully electric or hybrid, compared with 6% globally.


After an astonishing rise, some analysts are wondering if China’s EV industry can continue to accelerate, as the government winds down state support and geopolitical tensions threaten to dampen global demand for its cars.  READ MORE...

Two Legged Robots with AI Brains

When Fourier Intelligence unveiled its lanky, jet-black humanoid robot GR-1 at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai in July, it instantly stole the show.

While the global technology community has been fixated on artificial intelligence (AI) software since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in November, the Chinese-made GR-1 - said to be capable of walking on two legs at a speed of 5km an hour while carrying a 50kg load - reminded people of the potential of bipedal robots, which are being pursued by global companies from Tesla to Xiaomi.

For Fourier, a Shanghai-based start-up, GR-1 was an unlikely triumph.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

"It is an unprecedented attempt by us - we barely had any reference when it came to the technology," Alex Gu, founder and chief executive of Fourier, said in a recent interview with the South China Morning Post in the Chinese financial capital.

Fourier's focus has not always been on humanoid robots. Named after the 19th-century French mathematician and physicist Joseph Fourier, the company was originally set up in 2015 in Shanghai's tech hub Zhangjiang with the aim of developing rehabilitation robotics.

The firm's current products include a smart exercise bike, a wireless robotic glove and a series of computer-guided contraptions that help users restore movement in their arms and legs.

But just like many of his peers, 42-year-old Gu, a mechanical engineering graduate from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, had long dreamed about creating his own humanoid robot.  READ MORE...