Beijing
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Eleanor Olcott retweeted
Chinese influencers going to the riots to take fitpics in the Chrome is spiritually extremely Chinese
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Nothing will stop these hustlers looking for a good deal.
I met someone who only found out her dad had a second family after arriving at private school to find her half sibling also attended. There is a discount after the first child.
China’s most chaotic wedding story of the year
A man in Guizhou had two separate banquets at the same hotel on the same day: his wedding downstairs with his legal wife, and a 100-day celebration upstairs for his child with his ex-girlfriend.
The two groups ended up in a dispute, and hotel staff called the police.
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Eleanor Olcott retweeted
FT: China is building data centres at rapid speed across its energy-rich hinterland, as Beijing seeks to turn abundant electricity and cheap land into an advantage in the global race to develop AI.
@EleanorOlcott @zijing_wu
ft.com/content/e1dd8bff-b06d…
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Some numbers to explain why China's taxman is going after the wealthy, including their offshore assets.
China's (central and local) government debt interest payments are projected to climb to Rmb1.4tn this year, up from Rmb348bn in 2014.
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Eleanor Olcott retweeted
不理解為什麼不放開單身女性冻卵，试管婴儿和代孕，可以做些管制，譬如代孕不能超过三个这种，现在黑色渠道都有，合法化，正儿八经促进生育和经济。
Kinmen, a cluster of rocky islands belonging to Taiwan but lying just off China's coast, was once the site of fierce fighting between the PLA and KMT. Today, it is seen as a potential flashpoint in any future conflict.
But the former military frontline is also home to a fertility clinic offering treatments restricted in mainland China. Single Chinese women seeking to freeze their eggs must travel abroad, with Thailand and the US among the popular destinations.
I was surprised to discover that women from neighbouring Fujian province are also making the short journey to Kinmen to freeze their eggs.
I travelled to Kinmen to report on this unlikely cross-strait business, and what it reveals about the complex relationship between China and Taiwan.
For the @FT weekend magazine
ft.com/content/a6f9e7c6-996e…
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Kinmen, a cluster of rocky islands belonging to Taiwan but lying just off China's coast, was once the site of fierce fighting between the PLA and KMT. Today, it is seen as a potential flashpoint in any future conflict.
But the former military frontline is also home to a fertility clinic offering treatments restricted in mainland China. Single Chinese women seeking to freeze their eggs must travel abroad, with Thailand and the US among the popular destinations.
I was surprised to discover that women from neighbouring Fujian province are also making the short journey to Kinmen to freeze their eggs.
I travelled to Kinmen to report on this unlikely cross-strait business, and what it reveals about the complex relationship between China and Taiwan.
For the @FT weekend magazine
ft.com/content/a6f9e7c6-996e…
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No humans involves, apart from the person who baked the cake and the delivery driver who delivered it to the robot.
It's easy to forget about the millions of humans who sustain this cheap delivery system when a cute robot does the final stretch to the hotel room.
bros. Shenzhen is something else.
it's my birthday. a robot just woke me up with a cake.
nobody ordered it. the hotel has a system: if your birthday falls during your stay, it auto-orders a cake on Meituan ( chinese uber eats) and a robot delivers it. no human involved
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Eleanor Olcott retweeted
Great report on the scale of China's power oversupply (yep you read that right, oversupply) as a motivating factor to build more AI data centers
Also great on @EleanorOlcott to actually go to Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia to see the place for herself
It is not an overnight phenomenon, but a data center hub for more than a decade now. I first came across it and wrote about it 4 years ago, when self-driving was the craze in China and Ulanqab was the palce to both build data centers and hire cheap human labor to label pedestrians for algorithms.
The city pitched itself then as the "Cloud Valley on the Grassland"
Maybe it should update its slogan now to the "Birthplace of Chinese AGI on the Grassland"
This is the first in a three-part series examining China’s breakneck build-out of AI infrastructure as it seeks to become the pre-eminent tech superpower. With @EleanorOlcott and @WillLangley96 from the hinterlands of Ulanqab to Shaoguan
Limited free link
as.ft.com/r/dd3eceea-e2f6-44…
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From @CamCavendish fascinating deep dive on "social contagion" effect on low fertility. If colleagues see their bosses having children, they're more likely to follow.
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Eleanor Olcott retweeted
Nice dispatch from China’s aspiring token capital
In Inner Mongolia, an abandoned high school is being turned into an AI data centre. Soon, computing racks will occupy the grounds where students once gathered between classes.
It's a striking metaphor for China's changing economy.
ft.com/content/e1dd8bff-b06d…
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China races to build AI data centres across energy-rich hinterland ft.trib.al/4vEKDdF
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In Inner Mongolia, an abandoned high school is being turned into an AI data centre. Soon, computing racks will occupy the grounds where students once gathered between classes.
It's a striking metaphor for China's changing economy.
ft.com/content/e1dd8bff-b06d…
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I travelled to Ulanqab, where 89 data centres are built, under construction or planned, drawn by cheap electricity, abundant land and proximity to Beijing.
Inner Mongolia generates around half of China's wind power — nearly four times the UK's entire wind fleet.
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As @pretentiouswhat puts it, the region may have the world's “largest electricity local oversupply”. Now, China's AI infrastructure boom is helping soak up that excess power.
First in three FT part series with @zijing_wu and @WillLangley96 on China's Data Centre build out
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Eleanor Olcott retweeted
FT: Chinese women turn to surrogates to avoid motherhood ‘penalty’—With surrogacy illegal in China, agencies and consultancies are increasingly connecting would-be parents with women overseas
@EleanorOlcott
ft.com/content/6fa1cea0-7353…
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Huawei is being increasingly vocal about their AI roadmap. First time in a few years foreign media was invited to its flagship tech conference in Shanghai.
Huawei Chair Eric Xu:
Chinese researchers need to “increase the speed of development so they can also see the dangers of AI development” like their US counterparts 🤔
Xu said at least six or seven Chinese AI labs were aiming over the next two years to train models containing 10tn to 40tn parameters, a significant increase from current model sizes in China.
ft.com/content/c1f4cacf-098a…
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Eleanor Olcott retweeted
It might sound trivial given how serious the risks are, but it bears repeating: we need a permanent channel with technical experts for the U.S. and China to talk about AI risks that cross borders. This is not inevitable; both leaders will need to agree to build it.
Glad to share my thoughts with @FT's @EleanorOlcott
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