Shanghai Stocks Decade High 📈 Tesla Adds China AI 🚗 Xinjiang Lab Diamonds 💎

China Insights Weekly for August 25. Unpacking China’s economic and technological advances.

AuthorAuthor

Tomas Kucera & Yereth Jansen
August 25, 2025

In partnership with

2025-08-25 | subscribe | homepage

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

  • Grab invests in WeRide to roll out robotaxis across Southeast Asia

  • Tiantai Robot signs world’s largest order for 10,000 humanoid robots

  • China pushes AI chip independence, targets 70% self-sufficiency by 2027

  • Huawei opens 100MW truck supercharging hub, serving 700 heavy-duty EVs daily

🚀 Headlines

Chinese stocks surged to multiyear highs last week, with the Shanghai Composite Index closing 1.45% higher at 3826, its highest level in a decade. The Shenzhen Composite Index and the ChiNext Price Index both reached significant milestones. This rally is driven by hopes for stimulus, easing trade tensions, and ample liquidity from mutual funds, individual investors, and insurance funds. Analysts note that Chinese households are reallocating assets from the property market to stocks due to low interest rates. The rally is also supported by potential Federal Reserve rate cuts and Chinese policy moves, including reforms aimed at curbing excess production capacity.

Singapore-headquartered Grab has invested in WeRide, a Chinese autonomous driving company, as the firms partner on the robotaxi rollout. The investment aims to accelerate the deployment of autonomous vehicles in Southeast Asia. Guangzhou-based WeRide has been a pioneer in the autonomous driving sector, with significant technological advancements and strategic partnerships. The collaboration leverages WeRide's expertise in autonomous technology and Grab's extensive ride-hailing network. This move underscores the growing interest in autonomous transportation and the potential for robotaxis to transform urban mobility.

Tesla is upgrading its EV voice assistant system in mainland China using AI from DeepSeek and ByteDance to improve user experience. DeepSeek’s chatbot enables casual conversation and provides real-time news and weather, while ByteDance’s Doubao large language model handles voice commands for navigation, media, and cabin functions like air conditioning. Users can activate the system with phrases like “Hey, Tesla,” replacing manual controls. ByteDance’s Volcano Engine integrates the AI using encrypted APIs. The upgrade reflects Tesla’s push to enhance in-car interaction and stay competitive in China’s growing EV market.

DeepSeek has released its most advanced open-source model to date, V3.1, a 685-billion-parameter system uploaded to Hugging Face. It scored 71.6 percent on the Aider coding benchmark, rivaling proprietary models from OpenAI and Anthropic. V3.1 supports up to 128,000 tokens of context, works across multiple precision formats, and combines chat, reasoning, and coding in one model. It is also cost-efficient, completing coding tasks for USD 1.01 compared to nearly USD 70 for similar outputs from U.S. models. Released shortly after GPT-5 and Claude 4, DeepSeek’s model highlights China’s push for accessible, high-performance AI.

Creatine for a Sharper Mind and Stronger Body

Your focus, clarity, and resilience are your competitive edge. Momentous Creatine isn’t just for athletes—it’s for leaders, innovators, and high-performers who need to think fast, stay sharp, and recover quickly from both mental and physical demands. Backed by experts like Stacy Sims and Andy Galpin, and trusted by over 200 professional and collegiate teams, Momentous delivers Creapure®—the purest, pharmaceutical-grade creatine—for brain and body benefits.

Creatine supports working memory, mental sharpness, and sustained energy, while enhancing muscle strength, power, and recovery. No fillers. No artificial junk. Just gold-standard creatine, NSF Certified for Sport® and tested for safety, accuracy, and banned substances.

When you demand excellence from yourself, every detail matters—including the supplements you choose. Momentous Creatine is precision-made to help you perform at your highest, wherever you compete.

Head to livemomentous.com and use code HIVE for up to 35% off your first order.

Guangdong Tiantai Robot has signed the world's largest single order for 10,000 embodied intelligent humanoid robots, marking a significant milestone in the commercialization of the industry. The deal, which involves collaboration with partners including Hong Kong Zai Robotics, Shandong Future Robotics, and Shandong Future Data Technology, paves the way for mass production and deployment of advanced humanoid robots. All parties to the order will advance the implementation of the project in stages, complete the development of first-generation product prototypes in 2025, achieve mass production of 50,000 units in 2026, and increase production capacity with additional investment. At least 10,000 humanoid robots for home rehabilitation will be delivered by the end of 2026.

China is accelerating its drive for AI chip self-sufficiency, with major municipalities setting aggressive targets. Shanghai aims for 70% of data center chips to be domestically designed or produced by 2027, while Beijing targets full independence by the same year. Guiyang, home to major data centers, demands that 90% of chips in new facilities come from Chinese suppliers. Despite increasing reliance on local AI platforms like DeepSeek, Alibaba, and Baidu, China's hardware backbone remains heavily dependent on NVIDIA. However, Huawei’s Ascend 910B delivers about 85% of NVIDIA’s H20 performance, and the upcoming 920 is expected to close the gap. Domestic players like Cambricon Technologies and Baidu’s Kunlun unit are also ramping up AI chip development.

Japan's lead in power semiconductors has reportedly shrunk to just 3 years, challenged by the rapid rise of Chinese rivals. Japanese companies like Mitsubishi Electric, Fuji Electric, Toshiba, Rohm, and Denso each hold less than 5% of the global market. In contrast, Chinese firms TanKeBlue and SICC have quickly gained 17.3% and 17.1% market shares, respectively. Chinese companies benefit from lower energy costs, which account for 30–40% of substrate manufacturing costs, allowing them to offer more competitive prices. China's vast EV market also provides strong demand, enabling manufacturers to scale production and refine products through customer data.

Shanghai-led aid projects have turned Shache County in Xinjiang into a global center for synthetic diamonds. Backed by the Aid Xinjiang program, Zhenzuan Jewelry has opened China’s largest lab-grown diamond factory using high-clarity chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Operated by CRCMT, the facility uses microwave plasma CVD to produce diamonds with 99.999 percent purity at about one-fifth the cost of natural diamonds. CRCMT plans to scale annual output to 500,000 carats in its second phase, which would account for 15 percent of global supply. The project is expected to create 800 jobs and train 50,000 technical workers, contributing to Shache’s rise as a major hub for man-made diamonds. The initiative is part of a long-running program that pairs developed cities with less-developed regions to transfer resources, skills, and technology.

China's beauty market rebounds with overall cosmetics sales reaching USD 35.6 billion, up 3.1% in 7 months to July (link)

China’s beauty market rebounded in July, with cosmetics retail sales rising 4.5 percent year-on-year to 26.5 billion yuan (USD 3.6 billion), reversing a decline in June. From January to July, total sales reached 256.2 billion yuan (USD 35.6 billion), up 3.1 percent. Luxury skincare brands La Mer and Helena Rubinstein saw strong growth of 35.6 percent and 23.6 percent, while perfume sales surged, led by Maison Margiela with over 390 percent growth. In makeup, YSL remained top-selling, with Chanel moving to second place. Chinese indie brands Zhiben and HBN grew 34 percent and 11.6 percent. On Douyin, domestic labels led sales, with Tilovi topping color cosmetics and Kans generating over 4 billion yuan (USD 557 million) in skincare GMV from January to July.

Huawei unveils world’s first 100MW heavy-duty truck supercharging station targeting 700 electric trucks daily (link)

Huawei has unveiled the world’s first 100-megawatt heavy-duty truck supercharging station in Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County, Sichuan Province. Built on Huawei’s Megawatt Supercharging technology, the station can serve up to 700 electric trucks daily, delivering over 300,000 kWh per day. Developed by Sichuan Yuanqi Xingguang Digital Energy Technology, the 11.5-acre facility includes 18 superchargers at 1.44 MW and 108 at 600 kW, all liquid-cooled. It also features a nearly 1 MW photovoltaic carport and two 215 kWh wind-liquid energy storage units. The site is expected to cut carbon emissions by 45,000 tons annually and save truck owners 150,000 yuan (USD 21,000) in energy costs. A built-in microgrid with Virtual Power Plant technology allows the station to operate independently from the main grid while maximizing renewable energy use and lowering costs.

📸 China Snapshot

Shanghai’s Lujiazui skyline in Pudong dominates the view from the LuOne office tower in Huangpu, with the 632-meter Shanghai Tower, Jin Mao Tower, and World Financial Center rising above the city. Clear skies offered rare postcard views this August, even as daily highs push 38°C, marking the peak of Shanghai’s hottest season.

Photo by Yereth Jansen

🎁 Bonus Stories

World's tallest bridge set for load testing in south-west China's Guizhou Province (link)

The Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge in southwest China's Guizhou Province, set to become the world's tallest bridge, began load testing on August 21, 2025. The suspension bridge has a vertical height of 625 meters from the deck to the river surface and spans 1,420 meters, making it the largest span bridge built in a mountainous area globally. The 2,890-meter-long bridge is a significant engineering feat, showcasing China's advancements in infrastructure development. The load testing is a crucial step before the bridge's official opening, ensuring its structural integrity and safety.

Chinese game developer Game Science has announced a sequel to its hit action role-playing game "Black Myth: Wukong," titled "Black Myth: Zhong Kui." The announcement came exactly one year after the original game's release and was revealed through a trailer at Gamescom. "Zhong Kui," a character from Chinese folklore known for capturing ghosts, will be the new protagonist. The sequel is still in early development, and the company aims to introduce new elements, including a new hero, gameplay, visuals, technology, and story. The original game sold over 20 million copies on Steam in its first month, generating over USD 961 million in revenue. This success sets high expectations for the sequel, which is expected to explore a new style while maintaining a staggered release schedule with "Wukong."

☕ Support our work

If you enjoy our newsletter, please consider buying us a coffee to keep us energized in bringing you the latest insights! 🤓☕

👥 About us

China Insights is brought to you by Tomas Kucera and Yereth Jansen, CEO at Darling Advertising + Design in Shanghai.

Reply

or to participate.