3. A whole bunch of Baidu workers are working across the clock and borrowing pc chips from different departments to prepare for the launch of Ernie Bot, Baidu’s reply to ChatGPT, this coming Thursday. (Wall Avenue Journal $)
4. Shou Zi Chew, TikTok’s CEO, has sought closed-door conferences with a minimum of half a dozen lawmakers in Washington, DC. He’s scheduled to seem earlier than a congressional listening to concerning privateness and nationwide safety considerations about TikTok later this month. (Forbes $)
5. China might management 32% of the world’s lithium mining capability by 2025, the funding financial institution UBS AG estimates. (Bloomberg $)
6. China reappointed Yi Gang as the top of the central financial institution, signaling continuity in its financial insurance policies. (AP)
7. The “996” overwork tradition in China, embraced by tech firms a couple of years in the past, just isn’t going away simply. An govt at a Chinese language auto firm not too long ago requested its authorized division to determine “the way to keep away from authorized dangers” in asking workers to work on Saturdays. (Sixth Tone)
Misplaced in translation
In central China, a younger entrepreneur is reimagining retirement houses by instructing the senior residents the way to play e-sports. As Chinese language gaming publication ChuApp reviews, Fan Jinlin, a 25-year-old in Henan province, took over his household’s retirement home based business after school. He began creating video content material in regards to the lives of the residents and rapidly attracted hundreds of thousands of followers on Douyin, the Chinese language model of TikTok.
In February 2022, he started constructing an e-sports room in his fifth retirement house and recruiting seniors who’re fascinated with video video games. Zhang Fengqin, a 68-year-old retired financial institution clerk, is certainly one of them. She noticed the information on Douyin and utilized. Quickly, she grew from somebody who didn’t even know the way to use a mouse to a proficient participant of Teamfight Ways, a preferred recreation that doesn’t require fast reflexes as a lot as strategic pondering. Finally, Fan desires to construct knowledgeable workforce to play in tournaments, however to realize that, he would want a minimum of seven members like Zhang. Proper now he solely has three.
Another factor
The quantity 2,952 has disappeared from China’s social media platform Weibo. Why? As a result of President Xi Jinping prolonged his rule for an additional 5 years final week, having acquired 2,952 votes approving the extension—with zero opposed and nil abstaining—in China’s ceremonial legislative physique, the Nationwide Folks’s Congress. Whereas everybody knew Xi would get a 3rd time period, the truth that there was not a single opposition vote nonetheless obtained individuals speaking about how pointless the process was. Only a few days later, Weibo blocked search outcomes on the quantity.