THE COLUMN
China AI Decoded
Explained · Evidence · Context
A running column for readers outside China. Each piece takes one question about how the industry actually works — who funds it, what gets built, what the numbers measure — and answers it with named sources, dated facts and an explicit account of what remains unknown.
25 articles
- Why China Gives Away Its Best Models — 2026-10-19
- 140 Trillion Tokens a Day: The Price War China Already Ended — 2026-10-19
- China's Robots Are Being Designed for Its Grandparents — 2026-10-19
- Why Beijing Regulates the Algorithm but Not the Ambition — 2026-10-19
- How to Read a Chinese Model Card Without Being Fooled — 2026-10-19
- Beyond the Fab: China's Slow Build in Packaging and EDA — 2026-10-19
- The Microdrama Pipeline Is China's Most Successful AI Export — 2026-10-19
- Who Pays for China's AI Boom? Follow the Local Government Money — 2026-10-19
- The Factory Floor Is Where China's AI Case Gets Real — 2026-10-19
- China's Chips Are Built to Serve, Not to Train — 2026-10-19
- Humanoids Went to Work in China First. That's the Whole Strategy — 2026-10-19
- How to Read China's AI Numbers Without Being Fooled — 2026-10-19
- The Real Chip Shortage Is Memory — 2026-10-19
- The Grey Market That Keeps China's AI Running — 2026-10-19
- China's AI Is Going Abroad Differently: Capability, Not Products — 2026-10-19
- The Hidden Industry Behind China's Robots: People Paid to Teach Them — 2026-10-19
- The Distillation Debate: What Chinese Labs Actually Learned — 2026-10-19
- The Consumer Detour in Chinese Neurotech — 2026-10-19
- China Is Building AI Like a Power Grid. The Bill Is 7 Trillion Yuan — 2026-10-19
- What China's BCI Approval Actually Proved — 2026-10-19
- Huawei Has Half of China's AI Chip Market — and About 1% of Nvidia's Compute — 2026-10-19
- China Writes the Rule Before It Writes the Law — 2026-10-19
- China's 'AI Plus' Is Not a Slogan. Here's What It Actually Changes — 2026-10-19
- AI Is Already in Chinese Hospitals. The Bill Is the Experiment — 2026-10-19
- China's Agent Advantage Is Not the Model. It's the App — 2026-10-19