Apple AI Nears China 🧠 3D-Printer Exports Jump 90% 🖨️ World’s Best Twin Towers 🏙️

🚀 Headlines

Apple Intelligence to roll out on iPhones in China in December with Alibaba's Qwen (link)

Apple will launch Apple Intelligence in China this December, ending two years of regulatory delays through a landmark partnership with Alibaba. Following a developer beta on November 4, the iOS 27.3 update will deliver roughly 18 features, including writing tools and live translation, though Apple's latest Siri capabilities remain excluded. Crucially, Alibaba’s Qwen model will support text and image understanding through Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence. The rollout follows Chinese regulators granting Apple an AI license in July alongside Samsung and Huawei. The deal provides Apple a compliant path into its second-largest market while cementing Qwen’s position at the centre of China's consumer AI ecosystem.

A hardtech boom lifts China’s rich list to 1,529 people, with AI now the single largest source of wealth (link)

China's entrepreneurial dynamism has hit an all-time high. The Hurun China Rich List 2026 reveals a record 1,529 individuals worth over USD 740 million, with combined wealth rising 7% to USD 4.8 trillion. The country now boasts 1,176 dollar billionaires, outnumbering the United States by 176. The number of dollar billionaires in China rose by 155 from last year. A hardtech boom, spearheaded by artificial intelligence and robotics, is driving this surge. ByteDance's Zhang Yiming reclaimed the top spot with a record USD 99.7 billion, while DeepSeek's Liang Wenfeng debuted seventh at USD 41.7 billion. One in ten listers now derives wealth from AI. Shenzhen took the crown for the first time among cities, with 177 individuals, up 30, on the back of its semiconductor, AI and robotics clusters. Shanghai was second with 161, up 9, and Beijing third with 140. Hong Kong and Hangzhou rounded the top 5.

DeepSeek reaches 48.1 trillion weekly tokens and nearly 30% of OpenRouter text requests (link)

DeepSeek now commands 29.8% of text requests on OpenRouter, extending its lead over OpenAI (18.8%) and Google (14.4%). Its V4.1 Flash 1017 model processes 48.1 trillion weekly tokens, up 43%, while its combined Flash variants hit 63 trillion, more than the next four models combined. This dominance reflects a structural shift: DeepSeek’s relentless efficiency gains have made it a leading infrastructure choice for developers using OpenRouter. By capturing nearly 30% of OpenRouter text requests, up from 21% just four weeks ago, DeepSeek proves that Chinese open-weight models are no longer challengers but the undisputed volume leaders, forcing Western labs to slash prices and retreat into an increasingly narrow premium niche.

Cars, chemicals, machinery, and chips are the new face of China's export transformation (link)

"Made in China" has evolved from cheap textiles to high-tech products. Between 2015 and 2025, real export growth was led by vehicles (+192%), but also plastics (+59%), steel goods (+31%), electronics (+25%), and machinery (+22%). In the first half of 2026, chip shipments nearly doubled to USD 177.3 billion, and computer and server shipments rose 41.3%. Industrial robot exports are up over 300% since 2015, displacing Western rivals. A decade-long, state-backed push, including roughly USD 75 billion in chemical subsidies, has successfully propelled China up the global value chain, transforming the country from the world's workshop into an indispensable supplier of advanced components and the machinery required to build factories.

Shenzhen's four little dragons have captured 96% of the global hobbyist 3D printer market (link)

China's fastest-growing industrial export is not electric vehicles or humanoid robots, but the humble 3D printer. Exports surged 90% in the first half of 2026, and China's share of the global hobbyist market has skyrocketed from 19% to 96% over the past decade. Shenzhen's "four little dragons", Creality, Anycubic, Elegoo, and Bambu Lab, dominate globally. These sleek machines now feature AI that lets users generate complex designs through natural language and routinely sell for just over USD 500, undercutting Western rivals by more than half. Buoyed by state support and fierce competition, the sector is attracting heavy capital: Bambu Lab, founded by DJI alumni in 2020, is valued at roughly USD 10 billion, while Creality listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in May with a USD 1.5 billion market capitalization.