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Bottom Line Up Front MIIT and SASAC launched a humanoid training program this week targeting end-2026 deployment across manufacturing, logistics, healthcare and emergency response, calling for more than 100 high-value application scenarios and a 10,000-unit-class deployment capacity across 10 provincial-level regions and designated central SOEs. MOFA pledged necessary measures after the Pentagon added Alibaba, BYD, Baidu, NIO and battery maker CALB to its Section 1260H Chinese Military Companies list, with spokesperson Lin Jian saying Beijing opposes the broadened use of national security designations to suppress Chinese firms. Alibaba, Baidu and NIO filed HKEX disclosures rejecting the 1260H designation, with Alibaba pledging legal action, Baidu noting the list is not a sanctions list and does not restrict securities trading, and NIO saying it would engage the Defense Department to correct the listing. |
| Humanoid "work mode" mandated for end-2026 with SOE-anchored deployment MIIT and SASAC jointly issued a notice this week launching the 2026 humanoid robot and embodied intelligence real-world training action, Gelonghui reported, with Xinhua confirming the issuance June 9. The notice targets end-2026 deployment in manufacturing, inspection, maintenance, warehousing, logistics, retail, healthcare, safety, emergency response and disaster relief scenarios, and calls for more than 100 high-value application scenarios and a 10,000-unit-class deployment capacity. The plan covers MIIT departments in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong and Sichuan, plus designated central SOEs. |
| MOFA refuses U.S. request to resume rare earth exports to Japan MOFA spokesperson Lin Jian responded at the June 9 press conference to a Bloomberg question on a Nikkei report that the United States had asked China to resume rare earth exports to Japan, Wallstreetcn reported. Lin referred specifics to competent authorities and said China lawfully prohibits dual-use exports to Japanese military end-users, military uses and uses that "could enhance Japan's military capabilities." Lin said the stated purpose is "stopping Japan's re-militarization and nuclear ambitions." |
| Alibaba, Baidu and NIO file HKEX disclosures rejecting Pentagon 1260H designation barring Pentagon contracts Alibaba's June 9 Hong Kong Stock Exchange filing called its inclusion a mistake without basis and pledged to "take all available legal actions" against any attempt to mischaracterize the group, ITHome reported. Baidu's filing said inclusion was without proper justification, noted that the CMC list is not a sanctions list and does not restrict securities trading, and said U.S. government procurement restrictions would not affect its business. NIO's filing said it would "actively engage with the U.S. Department of Defense to correct" the listing, including legal action if necessary. |
| China's intelligent compute base hits 1.59 million PFLOPS, ranks second globally The National Data Bureau's Digital China Development Report, released June 8, said intelligent compute power reached 1.59 million PFLOPS by end-2025, ranking second worldwide, ITHome reported via Xinhua. By end-2025 China had built out 42 10,000-card intelligent computing clusters and operated more than 13.73 million standard racks. Generative AI use included 457 million users for question-answering, 288 million for image and video generation, and 184 million as a life assistant, with 74.6% of generative AI users under 40. |
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| MOFA warns of "necessary measures" after Pentagon adds Alibaba, BYD and Baidu to 1260H list Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at the June 9 regular press conference that China opposes the U.S. "broadening of national security" and use of indicative lists to suppress Chinese companies, Yicai reported relaying Xinhua. Lin said Beijing called on the United States to correct its practices and would take necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies. The remarks responded to the Pentagon's Section 1260H Chinese Military Companies list expansion, which added Alibaba, BYD, Baidu, NIO and battery maker CALB. |
| May exports rise 19.4% as integrated circuit shipments more than double The General Administration of Customs released May 2026 trade data on June 9 showing exports of $376.78 billion, up 19.4% year over year and accelerating 5.3 percentage points from April, Caixin reported. Imports rose 27.4% to $271.35 billion, producing a monthly trade surplus of $105.43 billion, the highest May figure on record. ANZ senior China strategist Xing Zhaopeng told Reuters that memory prices rose 20% month over month and integrated circuit export growth reached 111% in May, while automated data processing equipment was up 66.1% and high-tech products up 50.9%. |
| U.S. federal judge strikes down Trump's $100,000 H-1B application fee U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston ruled June 8 local time that the Trump administration's $100,000 H-1B application fee was an unauthorized tax not approved by Congress, Caixin International reported. The Boston ruling sided with 20 Democratic state attorneys general who challenged the September 2025 proclamation that raised per-application costs from several thousand dollars to $100,000. AP, via NPR, noted that an earlier Washington, D.C. federal court denial of summary judgment against the fee hike had left the fee in effect and that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has appealed that denial, with a third suit in San Francisco setting up the possibility of divided rulings in three appellate circuits. |
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| III | AI & FOUNDATION MODELS | |
| Tencent opens WeChat AI developer beta to convert mini-programs into agent-callable skills Tencent published the "Developer Onboarding to WeChat AI Ecosystem Guide" on June 8 and opened a developer internal beta the same day, 36Kr reported. The platform offers two onboarding modes: Auto mode, in which WeChat parses mini-program source code and exposes capabilities to its AI with no developer code changes, and Developer mode for custom skills subject to platform review. Tencent said developer participation is voluntary and does not affect existing mini-program services, with WeChat's stack handling interpretation, invocation and follow-up payment within the app. |
| Alibaba folds Qwen and Future Life Lab into new Token Foundry business unit under CEO Alibaba announced June 8 the merger of its Tongyi Qwen large model business unit and Future Life Lab into a new Token Foundry business unit, with CEO Wu Yongming overseeing the group, Leiphone reported. Zhou Jingren was named Alibaba's first chief scientist and will head a new Alibaba AI Future Research Institute focused on frontier AI exploration. Alibaba said its latest Qwen-3.7 model ranks first domestically and in the global top three on coding capability, and its Q4 results disclosed last month showed AI business had crossed the initial investment phase into a commercialization phase. |
| Xiaomi MiMo says trillion-parameter model cleared 1,000 tokens/s output in trial release Xiaomi MiMo and TileRT jointly released MiMo-V2.5-Pro UltraSpeed mode on June 8, and Xiaomi founder Lei Jun said it is the industry's first trillion-parameter model to break the 1,000 tokens per second output mark, ITHome reported. The API is priced at three times the base MiMo-V2.5-Pro and is described as delivering roughly 10 times the output speed; no independent benchmarks of the throughput claim have been published. The trial application window runs June 9 to June 23 at 11:59 p.m. under a queue system, with each account limited to 10 daily entries and 30-minute session caps. |
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| IV | QUANTUM & FRONTIER SCIENCE | |
| Origin Quantum starts commercial service on Wukong-180 superconducting quantum computer Origin Quantum's fourth-generation Wukong-180 superconducting quantum computer began commercial service this week with a 180-qubit chip and 251 coupling qubits, 36Kr reported. Origin reported single-qubit logic gate fidelity of 99.9% and two-qubit gate fidelity of 99%, and said all four core subsystems, covering the quantum chip, measurement and control, environmental support and the operating system, are fully self-controllable. The system is accepting global quantum computing tasks, with application areas in biomedical research, financial engineering and materials science. |
| Dongfeng to mass-produce 350 Wh/kg solid-state battery in H2 2026 with claimed 1,000-km range Dongfeng's new oxide-polymer composite solid-state battery will enter mass production and vehicle installation in the second half of 2026, ITHome reported via the Wuhan Economic Development Zone. The battery is rated at 350 Wh/kg energy density and is targeted for vehicle platforms with pure electric range expected to exceed 1,000 kilometers. Dongfeng said it completed a solid-state battery lab and a 0.2 GWh pilot line in June 2025, and R&D head Zhang Wei put the team's self-research rate at 100% across electrode, electrolyte and pack integration. The next-generation high energy density Dongfeng battery is targeted for 2027 vehicle installation. |
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| DeepSeek opens IDC engineer hire to plan MW- to GW-scale own data centers DeepSeek posted a new "IDC Design and Planning Engineer" role on its careers page covering site selection, layout, construction drawings and onsite engineering for new data centers, Wallstreetcn reported. The job description references planning MW- to GW-scale infrastructure and lists liquid cooling, high-density power, modular construction and intelligent operations as focus areas. DeepSeek's reported valuation has reached 350 billion yuan (about $48 billion). Concurrent Agent harness PM and engineer roles are open, and senior operations hires are underway at the Wulanchabu intelligent compute center in Inner Mongolia. |
| Alibaba talks with central SOE nuclear operator on small modular reactors for Hangzhou data center stalled by grid policy A central state-owned nuclear power enterprise insider told China Business Journal that Alibaba approached the company about building small modular reactors for its Hangzhou Renhe data center, Sina Finance reported. The insider said the core bottleneck is the requirement that even captive power plants interconnect to the public grid at roughly 0.58 yuan per kWh ($0.08), which erodes the SMR cost advantage and has kept the talks from advancing past the negotiation stage. The Hangzhou Renhe facility opened in September 2020 as Alibaba's flagship immersion liquid cooled data center, and an Alibaba Cloud-controlled subsidiary in January 2026 took a stake in CNNC (Xiangshan) Nuclear Energy, a joint venture registered with 250 million yuan ($34 million) in capital. |
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