Baidu

China issued a Fintech Development Plan that looks to boost technology investments in financial services to provide more digital products to increase customer satisfaction by 2021. The Plan also mentions a number of technology areas such as AI, blockchain, and cybersecurity. (link)

It is reported that China Securities Regulatory Commission will explore how to transform current initial public offering process both to attract more technology companies to list in Mainland China and to make the IPO process more rigorous. (link)

Baidu will use BlackBerry’s QNX operating system for Baidu’s Apollo autonomous-driving open platform. QNX is an integrated software system that offers software development tools to security solutions for autonomous vehicles. (link)

October venture capital reached close to $900M, excluding the $4B funding in Meituan Dianping.

Microsoft Azure announced that it will triple its presence in China in the next few months through its local partners. Microsoft reportedly has more than 1000 cloud partners…

OEM incubation model allows global hardware focused startups to potentially collaborate more effectively with Chinese manufacturers. OEM incubation model now considers giving Chinese manufacturers a small stake in the company a good practice to align long-term interest from supply chain…

MIT and Tsinghua University will join forces to collaborate on the Future City Innovation Connector, a project that will support research and startups focused on finding solutions and building products for China’s massive urbanization.

Eight Roads Ventures, one of the investment arms of Fidelity, has launched a dedicated fund to invest in healthcare, life sciences, and medical devices companies in China. (link)

The Chinese government will begin regulating mobile payment platforms given the transaction volume of non-banking payments has risen to $16 trillion in 2016. This has a number of implications including sharing of data by Alipay and Tencent with the Chinese government.