DeepSeek Usage +60% 🧠 Roche’s $1B China Bet 💊 Toyota’s China Alliance 🚗

2026-10-12 | subscribe | homepage

Welcome back to China Insights Weekly. Here are some of the key highlights for this week’s edition:

• Apple’s app economy doubles, reaching RMB 4 trillion in annual sales

• Panda bond issuance +81%, as foreign borrowers use cheaper yuan funding

• Denser memory chips planned, CXMT targets 50% more data per chip

• World’s highest bridge, draws 3.3 million tourist visits

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🚀 Headlines

DeepSeek hits 41 trillion weekly tokens as Z.ai climbs on OpenRouter (link)

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash reached 41 trillion tokens on OpenRouter in the seven days through October 11, up 60% on the previous week and more than triple its nearest competitor. DeepSeek accounted for 24.5% of the platform's text requests in the week beginning October 5, while Z.ai reached 13.4%, emerging as its second-largest Chinese provider. Z.ai's GLM-5.3 is available in US coding tool Cursor; Germany's Aleph Alpha used it to generate synthetic training data for Kolibri, illustrating different routes into Western AI development. StepFun's Step 5 Preview debuted in the top five with 8.84T tokens. The week points to a diversified Chinese AI ecosystem with two volume leaders and expanding Western adoption. These figures measure OpenRouter traffic, not the entire global AI market.

Roche’s fourth China deal in seven weeks could reach nearly $1 billion (link)

Roche has signed a research and licensing agreement with Hangzhou-based Defand Therapeutics to discover molecular glue degraders for cancer and immune-driven diseases. The deal could be worth close to USD 1 billion if all milestones are met, with Defand receiving less than USD 10 million upfront, according to sources familiar with the terms. Under the collaboration, Defand will use its screening platform to identify molecules and advance programs to agreed stages; Roche then takes over development and holds exclusive global commercialization rights. Defand, founded in 2023 with roughly 25 employees, has yet to ship a molecule into the clinic. This marks Roche's fourth China partnership in seven weeks.

Toyota plans China joint venture alliance with GAC and FAW (link)

FAW, Toyota and Guangzhou Automotive (GAC) signed a strategic alliance framework agreement on October 8 under which GAC will acquire FAW's 50% stake in FAW Toyota through a share issuance, making GAC the common Chinese partner in both of Toyota's China joint ventures. After the deal, FAW Toyota and GAC Toyota will each be owned 50/50 by GAC and Toyota. FAW receives no direct stake in either JV, but it will become the second largest key strategic shareholder in GAC Group. The two joint ventures will form an alliance covering R&D, procurement, production and sales, building on two decades of collaboration that has delivered over 23 million vehicles in China, to accelerate electrification and intelligent development at both joint ventures.

Apple's China App Store ecosystem doubles to RMB 4 trillion in 5 years (link)

Apple's China App Store ecosystem generated approximately RMB 4 trillion (USD 560 billion) in turnover and sales in 2025, more than double the nearly RMB 2 trillion recorded in 2020. Physical goods and services accounted for roughly 90% of transactions, about RMB 3.7 trillion, while digital goods contributed RMB 149 billion and in-app advertising RMB 212 billion. Over 95% of transaction value incurred no Apple commission. Chinese developers dominated, accounting for 93% of downloads and 98% of local revenue, with their overseas earnings rising to 52%. The App Store averaged 167 million weekly visitors.

China races to build AI data centres with Inner Mongolia at the epicenter (link)

China is racing to build AI data centres across its energy-rich hinterland, with Ulanqab in Inner Mongolia emerging as Asia's fastest-growing hub. The city has 89 data centres built or planned and about 15GW of committed computing capacity. Nationally, China operates 24GW of data centre capacity, more than the rest of Asia combined but less than half of America's 56GW, and has announced 50GW in additional projects. Ulanqab's advantages are compelling: electricity at RMB 0.358 per kWh versus RMB 0.80 in Beijing, average temperatures of 4.3°C, and construction costs 20% below larger cities. Inner Mongolia boasts 117GW of installed wind capacity. Developers complete projects in 12 to 18 months, against 18 to 24 in America.