The Latest from Rita Liao
Laiye, China’s answer to UiPath, closes $50 million Series C+
Robotic process automation has become buzzy in the last few months. New York-based UiPath is on course to launch an initial public offering after gaining an astounding valuation of $35 billion in Febr
Tesla mulls cars tailored to China amid mounting criticism
Tesla is working on vehicles tailored to Chinese consumers as complaints about the quality of its electric vehicles send shock waves through the internet in the country. The American EV giant is mulli
Huawei is not a carmaker — it wants to be the Bosch of China
One after another, Chinese tech giants have announced their plans for the auto space over the last few months. Some internet companies, like search engine provider Baidu, decided to recruit help from
Volvo to supply cars for Didi’s global autonomous driving fleets
As the autonomous driving race in China heats up, Didi is rushing to expand its car fleets by picking Swedish automaker Volvo, an old partner of Uber, as its ally. Didi said on Monday it will be using
China’s Xpeng in the race to automate EVs with lidar
Elon Musk famously said any company relying on lidar is “doomed.” Tesla instead believes automated driving functions are built on visual recognition and is even working to remove the radar
Jack Ma’s Ant called to end anti-competition in payments
The details for Ant’s overhaul have arrived. Ant Group, the fintech affiliate of Alibaba controlled by Jack Ma, will become a financial holding company that will bring more regulatory scrutiny over
China gets serious about antitrust, fines Alibaba $2.75B
Chinese regulators have hit Alibaba with a record fine of 18 billion yuan (about $2.75 billion) for violating anti-monopoly rules as the country seeks to rein in the power of its largest internet cong
Chinese hardware makers turn to crowdfunding as they look to go global
China’s tech giants have had a rough time in Western markets over the last few years. Huawei and DJI have been hit by trade restrictions, while TikTok and WeChat are threatened with their apps b
Beyond Meat opens its first production plant in China
About a year after Beyond Meat debuted in China on Starbucks’s menu, the Californian plant-based protein company opened a production facility near Shanghai to tap the country’s supply chai
Former Amazon exec gives Chinese firms a tool to fight cyber threats
China is pushing forward an internet society where economic and public activities increasingly take place online. In the process, troves of citizen and government data get transferred to cloud servers
KKR closes $15 billion fund targeting consumption and urbanization in Asia
KKR has just closed $15 billion for its Asia-focused private equity fund, exceeding its original target size after receiving “strong support” from new and existing global investors, includ
Chinese startups rush to bring alternative protein to people’s plates
In many ways, China is the ideal testbed for alternative protein. The country has a long history of imitation meat rooted in Buddhist vegetarianism and a growing, health-conscious middle class.
Bilibili ups the ante in games with $123 million investment in TapTap
Competition in China’s gaming industry is getting stiffer in recent times as tech giants sniff out potential buyouts and investments to beef up their gaming alliance, whether it pertains to cont
Huawei seeks growth in Internet of Things as phone business suffers
Huawei’s struggles amid U.S.-China trade tensions are driving it to seek opportunities in other smart devices, setting itself up against a raft of hardware makers at home and abroad. The Chinese
Xiaomi joins the ranks of Chinese tech giants to work on EVs
After weeks of rumors, Xiaomi officially confirmed that it is making a foray into the electric vehicle space. The Chinese smartphone and IoT giant will set up a wholly-owned subsidiary to operate a sm
A trove of imported console games vanish from Chinese online stores
In the world’s largest gaming market, China, console games play a relatively small part as their revenue has been meager compared to mobile and PC games for years — at least by the officia
What Silicon Valley could learn from China’s Q&A platform Zhihu
China’s largest question and answer platform, Zhihu, began trading in New York at $9.50 per share at the lower end of its IPO range, valuing the company at about $5.3 billion. The aggregate offe
TuSimple’s IPO filing reveals roadblocks for self-driving startups with Chinese ties
While the governments of the United States and China are pushing policies for technological decoupling, private tech firms continue to tap resources from both sides. In the field of autonomous vehicle
H&M removed from Chinese apps over Xinjiang cotton boycott
H&M has been removed by major e-commerce and service apps in China after a Communist Party organization barraged it for a statement expressing “deep concern” over allegations of forced
China to ban apps from collecting excessive user data starting May 1
Starting May 1, apps in China can no longer force users into providing excessive personal data, according to a document jointly released by a group of the country’s top regulators (the Cyberspac