China, one of the world’s largest buyers of crude oil, watched with concern as the U.S. seized control of Venezuela’s oil industry because Beijing relies on cheap oil from Washington-sanctioned countries, which raised concerns that it could start getting choked in the market if the U.S. also attacks Iran.
For the first time, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has added domestic AI chipmakers, including majors Cambricon and Huawei, to its official list of approved suppliers for the country’s businesses and public agencies.
China’s AI chipmakers are struggling to match the power of U.S.-made hardware. However, the West lacks the power of China’s electrical grid – a key factor in the AI race.
On 28 January 2025, The Trends Journal alerted subscribers about this little-known Chinese AI startup, DeepSeek, that sent a bolt across the AI-driven stock market’s bow when it announced that it trained a free AI assistant for $6 million instead of the $100-million-plus that Open AI and other Western tech companies had to spend on their products.
Donald Trump said he will grant Nvidia Corp. permission to export its H200 chips to China.
Right now, there’s much talk about who’s up and who’s down in the AI Arms Race.
Next year, for the first time, India’s growth in oil consumption will be greater than China’s, chief economist Saad Rahim at commodities trader Trafigura Group told the Financial Times Asia Commodities Summit last week.
India’s stock market is performing less well than the exchanges of other emerging economies and doing so by the widest margin this century, the Financial Times reported.
In 2026, China will again set a modest 5-percent GDP growth target, repeating the goal it set for 2025, according to government advisors and officials who spoke to Reuters.
China will deploy human-shaped robots at its border crossing with Vietnam south of Guangxi, the South China Post reported.