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Bottom Line Up Front China released version 3.0 of its AI Safety Governance Framework today at the opening of China Cybersecurity Week in Jinan, Shandong, alongside the year's test results for AI applied to cybersecurity. The National Medical Products Administration approved the world's first standard for medical devices that use AI to read brain signals, setting a common quality bar for the brain recordings, taking effect Sept. 1, 2027. Hangzhou Jiaren Semiconductor said it grew a 12-inch crystal of gallium oxide, whose constant-diameter section yields more substrates per crystal and matches the dimensions of mainstream silicon production lines. |
| China releases version 3.0 of its AI safety governance framework China released version 3.0 of its AI Safety Governance Framework at the opening of National Cybersecurity Awareness Week in Jinan, Shandong. Two other items came out with it, the year's test results for AI applied to cybersecurity and cybersecurity label filings for consumer networked cameras. The Cyberspace Administration of China, which regulates online content and data, is one of 10 co-organizers, alongside the Central Propaganda Department and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Programming includes a cybersecurity technology summit forum, a technology experience zone and a recruitment fair for cybersecurity roles. Themed days cover campuses, telecom and finance, among others, and events run through Sept. 20. |
China's medical device regulator sets a world-first standard for AI processed brain signalsThe National Medical Products Administration approved a data standard today for brain-computer interface devices, after the August 25th edition's industry-ministry plan for more than 40 such standards by 2028. The rule lands on the data such a device learns from rather than on the device itself. The regulator, which licenses drugs and medical devices in China, says dataset quality bears on treatment results and patient safety. A brain-computer interface reads brain activity and turns it into commands a machine can act on. The standard's requirements and test methods cover how recordings of that activity are collected, processed, labeled, stored and accessed. ITHome reports it is the world's first product standard for medical devices that use AI to process such recordings, and the third brain-computer interface standard the regulator has issued. The administration used a fast-track procedure for both initiation and approval, citing urgent industry need, and the standard takes effect Sept. 1, 2027. |
| Chip substrate maker Hangzhou Garen claims a world-first 12-inch gallium oxide crystal Hangzhou Garen Semiconductor said it has grown a 12-inch gallium oxide crystal at constant diameter. Gallium oxide is sliced into the substrates that high-voltage power chips are built on, for uses such as electric vehicle fast charging and grid equipment. Only the constant-diameter section can be cut and polished into usable wafers, so a thicker one yields more substrates per crystal and lowers the cost of each. Jiaren says the 12-inch size matches mainstream silicon production lines closely, which would cut downstream equipment spending and the cost of changing a line over. The company credits its own SCIENCE-series growth equipment, which it says holds temperature to within plus or minus 0.1 degrees Celsius, for carrying it from 2-inch crystals to 12-inch ones. An 8-inch growth of gallium oxide on a gallium oxide substrate, announced in March, was certified by third-party institutions in China and abroad. |
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Commerce Ministry plan calls for mandatory smart home interoperability standardsThe Ministry of Commerce, which oversees trade and domestic consumption policy, and seven other departments issued an action plan on smart home consumption. It calls for mandatory national standards on device interoperability, moving past the accelerated drafting urged in the September 1st edition. Mandatory standards bind every vendor, so a device from one maker would have to work with another's. Basic telecom carriers are directed to turn on IPv6 by default in home broadband equipment they own, to raise household connectivity rates. IPv6 is the current internet addressing scheme, with a far larger pool of addresses. The plan also calls for smart home products built on domestic open-source operating systems, and sets requirements for basic smart devices in new finished apartments. Local governments will set their own smart home subsidy categories and rates under the 2026 trade-in program. |
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| III | AI & FOUNDATION MODELS | |
ByteDance's phone assistant drives other apps, and lets app makers refuseByteDance released the consumer version of its Doubao phone assistant today, with the phone-operating function arriving in beta, three weeks after the company's Doubao Work desktop agent (covered on August 25th). It is a GUI agent, software that drives the screen the way a person would, and the release gives app makers a way to refuse that. Under ByteDance's Screen Automation Execution Protocol, third-party apps declare their own operation boundaries and can explicitly permit or refuse automation of their screens. The company says it will not automate apps that refuse, and opened a 30-day public comment period on the rules. Screen question-answering lets the assistant act on what is on the display without a screenshot or an app switch. The assistant ships first on the Nubia NaviX Ultra, which goes on sale Sept. 16. |
| Alipay operator Ant Group opens an agent platform for AI glasses Ant Group, which runs the Alipay payment platform, upgraded and renamed its smart terminal connection framework as "Lingying" on Friday, pitching it as an operating system for AI glasses. The platform abstracts device capabilities such as camera, display and sensors into a single layer, so a developer adapts once rather than to each chip, system and device. Senior vice president Zhou Zhifeng said Ant is not entering hardware and wants to "pave the road" instead, turning identity, security and payment into infrastructure. Lingying supplies the software layer an agent runs in, spanning interaction, orchestration, execution and memory. Devices are identity-verified at admission and sensitive data is isolated locally. Every agent call to a tool requires authentication. The capabilities went live during the Inclusion Conference on the Bund at Shanghai's Yu Garden Mall and the Bund Finance Center. |
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| Machine tool maker DAS starts volume shipments of a grinder for optical connector pins Xi'an Dragonfly Automation Software, known as DAS, said Sept. 9 that its NanoGrind-N200 ultra-precision grinder has reached batch delivery. Imported machines for the job run 4 million to 5.5 million yuan (about $600,000 to $820,000) each on lead times longer than a year, and DAS says its price sits well below that. The grinder makes the pins that mold the fiber holes in MPO connectors, the plugs that join many optical fibers in a single housing. A pin measures 0.1263 millimeters across, about the thickness of a human hair. He Weidong, DAS chairman, said AI computing has become a contest in optical communications, with cluster performance limited by bandwidth and copper stable only across a few centimeters. DAS says its customers' end products flow to Nvidia, Corning and TSMC. |
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| V | ROBOTICS & AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS | |
| Robot maker Unitree prices its upgraded G1 humanoid at 95,000 yuan Unitree announced its G1+ humanoid robot at 95,000 yuan including tax, about $14,000 for the standard version. The changes are mostly to the motors, with peak torque at the shoulder and waist up 110% on the company's own figures. Heat generated at the same torque falls by more than two-thirds, the constraint that decides how long a joint can hold a load. Sensing pairs a stereo camera with a wide-angle single-lens camera, a 3D lidar and an abdominal camera, and a new neck adds two axes of head movement. Touch points on the head trigger dialogue or release the motion lock, and a microphone array locates a speaker by the direction the sound arrives from. A lab version called G1+ EDU offers Nvidia Orin among its compute modules and carries an 18-month warranty, extended from eight. |
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| State aviation group AVIC delivers a ground test rig for a 13-metric-ton helicopter AVIC, the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China, said Friday that the iron-bird test rig for its AC313A helicopter has completed final assembly and delivery. The rig, a ground stand-in for the aircraft, moves system integration testing off the flight test program, letting avionics, controls and hydraulics run together before the helicopter flies. It is built around a 1:1 steel simulated airframe with avionics systems, control devices and hydraulic power equipment integrated into it, and it will never fly. AVIC is developing the AC313A as a large multipurpose civil helicopter in the 13-metric-ton class, specified for high-altitude, high-temperature and extreme-cold conditions. Roughly 50 hours of ground testing come next, to supply data for AC313A type development. |
| China's military tests an AI casualty triage system in a joint exercise with Laos China's joint medical exercise with Laos ran its hospital train on a domestically developed casualty-admission command system for the first time, with a large AI model embedded across the admission workflow. The system offers recommendations on command and dispatch, triage and treatment plans, and gives the run full information management from admission through disposition. The exercise, "Peace Train-2026," entered its full-process stage Saturday in Vientiane, the Lao capital. Search teams carried drones and robot dogs to the disaster site, and tracked unmanned ground vehicles moved casualties located from relayed data. The scenario ran 20 casualties including a critical case, and the train's intensive care car holds 10 electric bunk lift beds with ventilators and portable ultrasound. Deputy medical team leader Wu Jiajia said the run-throughs tightened coordination between the two sides' medical units, ahead of the formal exercise. |
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China's Commerce Ministry warns Washington to halt espionage against Chinese tech firmsA Ministry of Commerce spokesperson said Friday that China "sternly warns" the United States to halt espionage against China and Chinese enterprises. The statement answered remarks by CIA Deputy Director Ellis, after the same ministry's rejection of a U.S. model-distillation charge CTD reported September 10th. Beijing's answer leaned on U.S. documents, pointing to Presidential Policy Directive 28 from 2014, which bars collecting foreign trade secrets to give U.S. firms a competitive advantage. Ellis said the United States is running broader espionage to counter a "dual threat" in the military and economic domains, naming AI, semiconductor and biotechnology firms as targets. The spokesperson called that framing malicious defamation, saying China's advances there are the work of its own researchers and companies. China will act under the Counter-Espionage Law to punish violations and protect Chinese companies' rights, the ministry said. |
| Xi puts an AI open-source initiative at the head of five BRICS proposals Xi Jinping proposed five initiatives for deepening BRICS cooperation yesterday at the second-stage session of the 18th BRICS Leaders' Summit in New Delhi. An AI open-source and inclusive-benefit initiative heads the list, placing it ahead of trade and investment facilitation, digital industry cooperation, smart manufacturing and sci-tech talent cultivation. Xi said "Greater BRICS" must keep industrial and supply chains stable and cultivate an integrated large market. He called for building an innovation incubator so that emerging technologies light the path to shared prosperity. |
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