Tech China Post #79

Starting September 1, residents of Hong Kong and Macao and Taiwan living in mainland China will be able to receive resident cards. The new resident card is a form of digital identity to allow these residents to receive similar benefits as mainland residents.(link)

The city of Chongqing is planning to establish a RMB50 billion (US$7.3 billion) fund to strengthen the local semiconductor industry. China manufactures 16% of the total domestic semiconductors consumption and imports about US$200 billion.(link)

Alibaba has filed over 10% of global patents in blockchain. IBM ranks second in blockchain patent filings. Alibaba has a growing b2b cloud business. With research and development in blockchain, Alibaba will position itself in bringing emerging technologies to enterprise customers, competing with large technology companies in the U.S. Jack Ma, Alibaba’s founder, has announced that he will step back from day-to-day management as he transitions leadership in Alibaba to allow him to focus on education. (link)

Huawei released the Kirin 980 artificial intelligence chip, a seven nanometer microprocessor. The next generation chip will be used in Huawei’s next generation phone. Apple is expected to release its own microprocessor of similar configuration. (link)

Blockchain can now be used to authenticate evidence in legal disputes in China, according to the country’s Supreme People’s Court. Internet courts can recognize digital data that are submitted as evidence if relevant parties collected and stored these data via blockchain with digital signatures, reliable timestamps and hash value verification, and can prove the authenticity of the applied technology. (link)