tphuang

BYD showcasing its magic blade 2.0 battery using 2nd gen lightning charging. Under regular condition, it charges from 10 to 70% in 5 min & 10 to 97% in 9 min! Under -20 C/extreme cold after 24 hr freeze, it can still charge from 20 to 97% in 12 min! Unbelievable!

@RushDoshi I talked about this in my podcast. Until meta & Amazon stop taking such a huge cut out of the e-commerce ecosystem, ai robots in America has no chance competing with China.

On Tuesday, I testified before the House Homeland Security Committee on China's strides in robotics and AI. I warned that we lost solar, batteries, and EVs -- now we're at risk of losing robotics and AI. If that happens, it would irreversibly change the balance of power. Five points: 1️⃣ China aims to win the next industrial revolution. PRC leaders believe history is shaped by industrial revolutions. The first, steam power, made Britain dominant. The second and third, electrification and mass manufacturing, made America dominant. China is determined to win the fourth. 2️⃣ In robotics, China is already winning. In 2024, China installed 300,000 new industrial robots. America installed 30,000. China now has over 2 million robots in its factories — five times more than the US. A decade ago, it imported 75% of its robots. Today it makes 60% domestically. This year alone, China may spend $400 billion on industrial policy. The entire US CHIPS Act provided $50 billion across multiple years. If we fall behind here, U.S. reindustrialization becomes farfetched. 3️⃣ In AI, we're ahead — but selling off the advantage. China has more energy, more talent, and makes the edge devices. But America still leads because of chips, according to China's own AI companies. US chips are 4-5x better than China's today. We are debating whether to surrender that edge. 4️⃣ We are inviting risks of cyberespionage and catastrophic cyberattacks. PRC law requires its companies to cooperate with intelligence services and never disclose it. Today's robots carry LiDAR, microphones, and cameras — they are mobile surveillance platforms. But the bigger risk is cyberattack. We know China has compromised our power, gas, water, telecommunications, and transportation infrastructure in preparation for cyberattack. We cannot deploy robots in sensitive facilities from the very country targeting those facilities. 5️⃣ Here's what we must do. Extend ICTS rules to cover Chinese robots. Direct CISA to audit where they're deployed in critical infrastructure. Ban federal procurement of Chinese robotics and AI. Strengthen semiconductor export controls. Stop treating American AI companies with more regulatory scrutiny than Chinese ones. And build allied scale in robotics—a trading bloc with preferential terms for the members that can rival China's scale in in the sector. Thanks to @HomelandDemsIt and @HomelandGOP for the hearing on this topic, and grateful to join @MRobbinsAUVSI and colleagues from Scale and Boston Dynamics for a great discussion.

Open source models are catching up faster than anyone expected. MiniMax M2.7 hallucination rate: 34%. MiniMax M2.5 was 89%. 55 point drop in a single generation. Out of 423 models on AA-Omniscience. M2.5 hallucinated at the same level as GPT 5.4. M2.7 just leapfrogged GPT 5.4. The gap between open source and closed source is shrinking every month. The frontier labs should be paying attention.

BYD is now entering the European Taxi market. German company has developed a taxi modification kit for Seal 06 DM-i Touring to allow it be used in Germany Taxi mkt. It has 130 km+ EV range & 1350 km combined range.

@Montebianco114 Probably not that much. Electrification will do more

@tphuang Nice! How much can coal ultimately replace oil in China

China will not touch SPR but commercial reserves will be draw down. We are about to find out how well they can handle huge oil shocks. Many Coal-to-liquid/gas/ethylene glycol/aromatics project to come online everywhere like this one: 300kt coal -> 280kt hydrogenated oil of 3 grades gasoline/diesel/fuel oil + LPG + sulphur. This might only be equivalent to 2-3m barrel of crude for gasoline, but they have many projects like this coming online, especially for chemical products. For the past few months, China has prepared for a Strait of Hormuz blockade by buying up excess oil supply while px is low (& kept Brent from falling below $60) while also snagging up all other metals in case supply get interrupted. It should be able to get through several months of heavy disruption w/ less pain than its neighbors, but situation can get a lot worse if Saudi Red Sea option gets cut off also.

@etbadabimbim I think it is a relatively small strike

@tphuang Yanbu has been hit

@ruima Molten salt reactor

In China, there is a joke going around right now that, 2026 is apparently the Year One 元年 of literally everything: 1/ autonomous driving 2/ liquid cooling 3/ domestic HBM 4/ on-device AI 5/ solid-state batteries 6/ AI applications 7/ quantum computing 8/ compute-memory integrated chips 9/ brain-inspired computing 10/ the low-altitude economy 11/ commercial space 12/ humanoid robots 13/ silicon photonics 14/ controllable nuclear fusion Is there a frontier technology that ISN'T going to hockey stick / cambrian explode this year???

@altuism99440 Seems like they can allow some exceptions then

@tphuang The Philippines seems to be Excepted “We had information that China will freeze the exportation of fertilizers because they also need fertilizers. The Chinese ambassador said it’s not true,” Tiu Laurel said during a media interview. manilatimes.net/2026/03/19/bus…

China's Urea capacity is 73mt & Coal represent 80% of that w/ gas the remaining. For Coal Urea, 60-75% of cost are from energy. 60% of fertilizer cost is Urea. Theoretically speaking, China can retain production by increasing coal urea utilization. Phosphate fertilizer export is facing full export control until 08/31. Urea export limit set to 3.3mt, but almost nothing allowed during the March/Apr planting season. China is clearly focused on securing its own food security ahead of export. Remains to be seen if it will open up export later on. This might require some delicate negotiations.

China had close to 20mt of Coal-to-Olefin/CTO at end of 2025. 4+ mt of PE & 4+ mt of PP coming online from Coal in 2026. Increased CTO capacity could make up for lower naphtha/crude import due to high px as Russian energy export attracts more buyers x.com/MarhelmData/st…

China at the moment has plans for 64.86mt of green methanol projects coming up, but only 610kt have entered production so far & another 2.19mt is under construction. There is a flood of green methanol capacity coming online in the next couple of yrs. The current crisis should accelerate desire for green methanol.

China may have the most unorthodox mix for its olefin production (for plastics, chemical etc), but its still heavily dependent on crude. See below, ethylene production is 68% from cracking crude, 23 (CTO/MTO), 7.7% (ethane cracking) Propylene is 45% from crude, 30% propane, 17% CTO/MTO, 8% other.

DingLong announced it has put 300t of Krf/Arf Photoresist into production. It now has > 30 high end photoresist product w/ half already validating/validated. China has demand for 500t Arf & 1200t Krf photoresist per yr & DingLong is looking for 10% of that. China does have some other domestic photoresist suppliers also.

@cryptomessenger there are some shortage and we will find out what those are.

@tphuang Critical precursors (feedstock, catalyst especially from SABIC, etc) might be where shortages develop. Hard to say right now.

Alibaba on its AI stack. Zhenwu-810E is in mass production & provided for its customer usage thru Alibaba Cloud. Its not the most capable chip, but saves on cost & has enough HBM. Also promotes Qwen 3.5 release. Max version will come out soon. It is also supporting multi-modal models which will compete against Seed & Xiaomi models. & finally, it is the biggest player in enterprise mkt w/ 1000+ large domestic firms using its AI cloud thru Cloud service.

@LukeGromen Time is on China’s side

US intelligence assessment admits China is not planning a 2027 Taiwan invasion, contrary to the assertions of numerous China hawks. h/t PA

MiMo TTS doesn't just talk — it sounds human. Sobbing. A sudden laugh. A cough. Heavy breathing. A nervous sigh. All woven naturally into speech. 🎧 2/n

HW/Hisilicon just entered high end camera/CIS mkt. Its CS5250V200 CIS chip uses RYYB architecture for 40% improvement in night vision, 50MP, DCG & HDR. Uses 4-in-1 stack tech & supports 4K/50FPS & 1080P 120 FPS. Also provides S7PRO MAX camera w/ Hi3519DV500 AI ISP camera chip w/ 2.5 TOPS NN compute & 4K30 support. While Omnivision, Smartsens & GalaxyCore are all likely more capable CIS, Hisilicon's ISP chip & integrating w/ its own CIS could give it a leg up in consumer electronic devices.

@electricfelix across the board

@tphuang any version or just the Max?

Xiaomi has launched 2nd gen Su7 @ px of 219.9k to 309.9k RMB. The 1st gen had 381k in total sales. Uses High Voltage SiC platform for 720 to 902 km range & supports 3.5C to 5.2C charging. Max version has 835km range & allows 10-80% charging in 12 min (15min for 670 km range).

China's Unipec to load 24 million barrels of Saudi oil from Yanbu in March, shipping data shows reuters.com/business/energ…

In terms of AI, it uses Nvidia Thor ADAS chip w/ 700 TOPS, 1 Lidar, 1 4D MMW radar, 11 camera & 12 USS. It supports advanced cockpit AI w/ QCOM Snapdragon 8 series SoC. Uses Xiaomi MiMo-Embodied AI model to support multi-modal input & human-like action in response.

Su7 Max uses new V6s Plus motor w/ 22000 rpm & 288 kW power & supports 100-0km/h braking in just 33.3m w/ new brake system. It uses 2200 MPa steel for strong protection & 1500 Map protection around battery. Has 29 stowage/cabin, 105L frunk, 493L trunk & 54.6 interior stowage.