Tech China Post #28…Xiaomi, Nuclear Energy, and Provincial Investments

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Xiaomi, one of the two dominant mobile device companies in China, plans to open more than 2000 stores globally next three years. In second quarter, Xiaomi shipped 23m phones. The firm has set the goal to ship 100m smartphones in 2018.

AI and future of cars are not the only emerging tech topics that China is pushing. China is planning to make Shanghai a top nuclear energy innovation center, leveraging private and public partnerships and the deep R&D and academic talent in Shanghai.

Apple is making $1B investment in Chinese province Guizhou. As part of the $1B investment, Apple will partner with local service firm to build the first data center in China. This is an effort to comply with the new cybersecurity law that was rolled out by the Chinese government earlier in the year.

Zhejiang, the home province where Alibaba started, will investment more than $150m to make Zhejiang and its capital city the AI hub. The goal is to create 100K AI-related jobs. Zhejiang province has always been a progressive and high tech province with significant existing academic and industry infrastructure.

It is reported by media that China will start to block VPNs starting 2018. Today, to gain access to most of media and communication websites, an individual has to use a VPN that can surpass the “Great Wall.”