I. Silicon Valley Tech News (US)
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NVIDIA H200 Export Approved: The Trump administration has officially greenlit NVIDIA’s H200 AI chip exports to China. However, a 25% fee will be paid to the US government, and shipments are capped at 50% of the volume sold to American customers.
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Apple Integrates Google Gemini: Apple and Google announced a major partnership to deeply integrate the Gemini AI engine into Apple Intelligence for the upcoming iPhone 17 series.
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California “Billionaire Tax” Spark Protests: A proposal to levy a one-time 5% wealth tax on individuals with assets over $1 billion has sparked intense backlash, with Elon Musk and other tech moguls warning of a massive talent exodus.
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Meta Forms “Meta Compute” Division: Mark Zuckerberg launched a new division focused on building gigawatt-scale AI infrastructure. This follows Meta’s recent $2 billion acquisition of the AI agent startup, Manus.
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xAI’s Grok Under Investigation: Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot is facing international scrutiny over a “deepfake” scandal involving the generation of non-consensual explicit images.
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Pentagon Adopts Grok AI: US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that the Grok AI engine will be integrated into the Pentagon’s network to enhance military data processing capabilities.
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Microsoft’s Power Grid Pledge: Addressing concerns over AI energy consumption, Microsoft promised that the costs of massive data center expansions will not be passed on to residential utility ratepayers.
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Younger AI Founders on the Rise: A 2026 report reveals the average age of AI unicorn founders has dropped to 29. The 22-year-old founder of Mercor has become the world’s youngest self-made billionaire.
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CrowdStrike Acquires Seraphic: Cybersecurity leader CrowdStrike acquired Seraphic to transform standard commercial browsers into secure, enterprise-grade environments via the Falcon platform.
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CES 2026 Wrap-up: The Consumer Electronics Show concluded in Las Vegas, shifting from “vaporware” concepts to Agentic AI—hardware capable of executing complex real-world tasks.
II. China Tech News
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World’s First 2D Semiconductor Line: China has officially powered up the first engineering demonstration line for 2D semiconductors in Shanghai, aiming for mass production of sub-1nm atom-thin chips.
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Deep-Sea Drilling Robot Success: China successfully tested its first robot capable of 3D drilling and in-situ monitoring in the South China Sea, a breakthrough for deep-sea geological exploration.
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Huawei Accelerates “De-Nvidia” Strategy: JPMorgan predicts that 2026 shipments of AI chips from Huawei and Cambricon will exceed 1 million units, significantly reducing reliance on high-end imports.
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Semiconductor Stocks Surge: Shares of Loongson, Changxin, and Haiguang rose by 10-15% following news of relaxed US chip export restrictions and easing trade tensions.
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Hainan Free Trade Port Boom: Following its full closure (Fenguan), Hainan has seen an average of 24,000 duty-free shoppers daily, with digital payment systems handling record-breaking stress tests.
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“Flying Street View” Launched: A leading Low-Altitude Economy firm released a real-time 3D Flying Street View system, allowing users to navigate urban airspace via VR terminals.
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MIIT Pushes Industrial Internet: China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology plans to establish 50 world-class cross-industry digital platforms by the end of 2026.
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Warning Against “AirDrop” Security Risks: Authorities warned against new encryption vulnerabilities in wireless file-sharing protocols (like AirDrop), which could lead to data theft.
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Solid-State Battery Breakthrough: Weichai Power and Baolong Tech announced the completion of laboratory trials for sulfide-based all-solid-state batteries, targeting 2027 for EV deployment.
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China Enters Top 10 Global Innovation Index: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that China has officially broken into the top 10 of the Global Innovation Index, marking a new era of high-quality growth.
